MyShingle : Solo and Small Law Firm Management and Marketing

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 Commission has now asked a special blue-ribbon committee to study ways to implement a mentoring program.  Ultimately, any proposals would be subject to final  approval by the Bar's Board of Governors.  In the meantime, however, the Dade County Bar Association has launched its own voluntary ''e-mentoring'' program -- the first by any local Bar in the state -- which pairs veteran lawyers with newer lawyers through e-mail.

In theory, a mentoring program sounds like a terrific idea.  Imagine the value to a young lawyer of having access to a more experienced colleague to answer basic questions like what court rule governs the number of days to respond to a motion or how to effect service on an out of state corporation.   Further, because most mentors won't work at the same firm as the new lawyer (at least, that's how I'd recommend setting up the program), the lawyer can seek honest advice without facing adverse repercussions on the job.  Finally, presumably a mentoring program won't cost money, which means that new solos who may lack financial resources can find some help without making a substantial investment. 

On the other hand, mentoring relationships depend on the parties involved in the case.  Some lawyers give willingly of their time, while others may have no desire to assist a new lawyers.  Some lawyers also don't know how to mentor - and may be more focused on talking about how they run their own firm, which might not necessarily be useful to a lawyer with a different vision.  And to be honest, some new lawyers have no interest in availing themselves of a mentor, either because of a stubborn "I must do this myself" mentality or a fear of appearing stupid.

Can mandatory mentoring work?  Or do mentoring relationships need to develop more naturally, when both sides are ready.  And finally - who's the best mentor you've ever had?  Please share in the comment section below.

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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." 

Not surprisingly, Liu ran a low cost shop - charging a flat fee of $2500 for an appeal, then making it up on volume.   As a result, Liu wound up juggling cases and cutting corners, which is typical for volume practice.  Lawyers who handle large numbers of cases face increased stress - and long hours leave little time to develop other business that might help escape the low margins of the numbers game.  Moreover, as Liu's case bears out, running a volume practice can expose lawyers to grievances and disciplinary actions because there's not enough time for quality control.

Despite well publicized stories about harried practitioners like Liu, many lawyers still fall into the volume practice trap.  And while I don't endorse volume practice as a long term business strategy, I realize many lawyers with volume practices serve a segment of the population who need representation and can't afford high rates - and that's an important role.   Thus,  as a profession, we need ideas to help practitioners make volume practices more efficient - and here are some ideas for doing that.

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It's the perennial question for lawyers starting a law firm - what do you call yourself? As I wrote here over two years ago, Enrico Schaefer maintains that the term "solo" is inaccurate. And more recently, the topic has been discussed on Solosez. As for me, I've always regarded the term "solo" as a catch phrase for lawyers who start a firm - be it one lawyer or multiples. And my upcoming book, Solo by Choice uses the term "solo" in the title because it's the most universally recognized phrase for lawyers who choose to step out on their own to work for themselves, rather than others.

Still, though I don't have a problem using the term solo descriptively, I'd never use it to describe myself. When I meet other attorneys, I explain that I'm an independent practitioner or (more preferable) that I have my own law firm. But even if you have a close attachment to the term solo, please - don't ever sign off on a pleading the way the way that this Phelps Family lawyer did: Margie Phelps, A Sole Practitioner. In fact, the entire pleading makes me cringe - and is an example of why, despite all of our best efforts, we self-starting lawyers still face image problems.

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Over at my beat at Legal Blogwatch, I posted a link to a free online handbook created by Chubb Insurance on the Risks of e-Lawyering.  The handbook, available here offers lots of tips to avoid running afoul of ethics rules in the age of technology, such as how to guard against inadvertently creating an attorney-client relationship or how to preserve electronic documents for discovery.  Plus, if you advise other businesses or corporations, Chubb has a number of other publications on a range of topics like avoiding slip and falls, preventing workplace fraud and IP checklists that might be a useful resource to pass on to clients.

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If you're starting a firm and not sure that you want to work from home, but are concerned about the cost of rent, a virtual office might be right for you.  This  article from the Chicago Business Leader (11/20/06) gives an overview of the costs and services of HQ Global, one of the larger competitors in the virtual office space arena.

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As I've posted once before, solos and small firms have as much to benefit from outsourcing as  large firms.  Yet, I still know many solos who file their own papers at the court instead of using a messenger service or spend time on administrative tasks they dislike instead of bringing someone in who can do a better job.  This post from Escape from Cubicle Nation reminds us of all the tasks, ranging from accounting to scheduling, that you can outsource, at not much cost.  Moreover, remember that outsourcing does not stop at the office.  If you don't enjoy home repair or cleaning or prefer spending time with family and friends instead, you can outsource those tasks too.  Chances are that at your billing rate, you can pay for a weekly housecleaning with an extra billable hour of work.

Does this mean that you should outsource everything?  No.  If you derive pleasure from certain tasks - like blogging or cooking or even housecleaning - don't delegate them.  But if you can find a way to make yourself more efficient and free up time to focus on what you enjoy, outsourcing makes sense.

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Dave Swanner has some great, defy-the-experts advice on starting a law firm.  The essence:  Don't overplan, get a phone line and some business cards, and just do it.  Though Dave admits in his comments that this no frills approach may not work for everyone, particularly those with major financial commitments, he's definitely on to something.  Sometimes lawyers get so bogged down in planning every detail of their practice, in waiting to have enough clients or enough money, that they may miss the opportunity to go solo at all. 

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Jim Calloway has a great post on one of the unanswered (pun intended!) questions concerning solo practice:  what's the best system for answering the phone?  Jim's post summarizes the pros and cons of (a) outsourcing to a live answering service (uneven quality and costly); (b) using paid employee (who may be low paid and unmotivated) or (c) relying on voice mail (which some clients don't like).  Jim then directs readers to this entry at Ellen Freedman's blog, which summarizes a discussion of the topic amongst various law practice management professionals.

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There's a discussion at Evan Schaeffer'sIllinois Trial Practice Blog over the feasibility of a fully paperless office.  Evan admits, and many commenters agree, that he has some difficulty relying exclusively on electronic documents, particularly when he's trying to get up to speed on a new, paper-laden matter.   

What do you think?  Do you still print out documents to read them - or are you fully adept at absorbing material on screen?

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Fellow blogger Allison Shields of Legalease Consulting wrote this article in this month's ABA Law Practice Management magazine on ten ways to get motivated.  Suffice it to say that the article worked well enough to get me to put up this post!

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This month at Law Practice Today is a roundtable discussion on whether it makes sense for law firms to outsource.  The discussion seems geared for larger firms and talk about outsourcing support staff functions as much as legal research and traditional contract lawyering.  The issue has another article by Ed Poll on choosing a virtual assistant. Also on the topic of outsourcing, I'm looking forward to hearing more from one lawyer who just might be the Greatest American Outsourcer on his experiences with his successful virtual law clerk program.  State tuned.

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For those solos who work from home or are thinking about doing so, here are two articles of interest.  First, from the Washington Post (4/3/06) comes this article, Working at Home, and Not Alone, about spouses who both work from home and how they negotiate their space.  And for those who already work from home, Grant Griffith offers this test to see if maybe you've outgrown your home office.

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Tom Kane of Legal Marketing Blog posts on the importance of a human answering a phone.  Tom is certainly right that you shouldn't regularly let phone calls go to voice mail, particularly when you're in the office.  At the same time, I'm not so certain about the importance of having a receptionist pick up.  As a personal matter, I'd much rather hit someone's voice mail directly, then have to speak with a receptionist or secretary, let alone leave a message with them.  Also, many new solos don't have the resources to hire a receptionist to answer calls.  Consequently, they're likely to use a virtual receptionist, which can sometimes be more of a disaster if the receptionist is rude or simply sends messages to voice mail without any elaboration.

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There's been some discussion on some of the listserves that I frequent about the Brodsky Law Firm which competes, proudly and flagrantly, on price alone.  Predictably, Brodsky's strategy has generated a slew of remarks like "you get what you pay for" or comments critical of this "race to the bottom," but I see things a little differently. Continue Reading...

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I like to think that I'm pretty good at multi-tasking but reading this post by Greatest American Lawyer tired me out.  In a couple of three minute intervals that would have otherwise gone wasted, GAL added two items to the firm extranet, Practicing Law from the Kitchen Table and in the Car, dictated instructions to staff so that they'll stay busy while GAL's out all day at depositions and added a post to his blog.  The next time you wonder how some people find the time to do so much, re-read GAL's post because it gives the answer:  don't waste a minute.

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This article, A small firm's approach to competition - go paperless (Biz Journal 2/27/06) reports on Baltimore area, solo attorney Adam Spence who's been able to limit his office to one large file cabinet as a result of his decision to go paperless.  The cost - $1300 for a top of the line scanner.  Clients' reactions and convenience?  Priceless.

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David Swanner, a solo South Carolina Trial Lawyer gives us his tips for starting a practice, which are followed by a discussion of the merits of Mac v. PC.

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Allison Shields has a great article about the importance of mission statements in the February 2006 issue of GP Solo.  Allison explains why you should have a mission statement and sets out steps on how to write one.  She adds that everything you do in your practice must be based on and measured against the mission statement.

For me, the mission statement is not just a proclamation to the public of who you are.  More importantly, the mission statement is a beacon, the light that guides you through the dark spots, the dull work, the annoying clients, the nasty judges and other hazards of the practice of law that might make you want to hang up your shingle.  The day I opened my law firm, I was determined to provide high quality legal services at reasonable rates to give all clients, deep pocket or not, a competitive alternative and in so doing, improve the quality of the legal profession.  I know that if I leave the law or put myself out of business by handling too many pro bono matters that a real alternative to the $600/hour biglaw firms will disappear and the needs of some clients will go unmet.  May not be the flashiest mission but it's worked for me for thirteen years.

Meanwhile readers, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to define your mission!

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David Maister and one of my internet buddies, Wendy Leibowitz coauthored this post on proscrastination and offer tips on ways to avoid avoidance.  They identify surfing the internet as an avoidance habit and suggest that if you can stop that habit for just ten minutes, you can begin to get yourself back on track.  These tips are especially important for work alone solos because we've got no one but ourselves (and our deadlines) to keep us accountable.

For me, blogging - both reading and writing them - is my own personal work-day time sink.  It's just too easy to immerse, following links deeper and deeper into the "blog fog," with no way out.  My new rule, effective as of two months ago, is simply not to blog during the work day.  I'll blog at night (as I am now) or after my daughters are home from school when I can't really work.  And as long as I can discipline myself to this schedule (I briefly fell off the wagon last week when I hadn't been able to post for a while), I do find that I get more work done.

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In this recent post at More Partner Income, Tom Collins asks whether an attorney who has a one day turn-around to respond to email and phone calls is being responsive.  Tom Collins says no, as does Ed Poll.  As a practicing attorney, however, I don't completely agree.

Some days, I might return late to my office from depositions or meetings and simply don't have the energy to respond to an email or phone call.  There are some days when I'm under or close to a deadline and I simply can't pick up the phone or answer every email that comes in.  Collins criticizes this approach, asking whether clients would be "happy dealing with someone who places a greater priority on their own efficiency than yours?"  Maybe not, but at the same time, I'm certain that those same clients would not want you to miss one of their deadlines because you were responding to someone else's emails. 

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Home Office Lawyer -Guru Grant Griffith shares these tips from  LifeHack on how to improve productivity working from home.  Tips include setting up a designated work area, setting a schedule and avoid volunteering for too many activities because people assume that when you work at home, you have more free time. Check out the post for more ideas.

Actually, one item missing from the list was figuring out how to keep from snacking all day long when you work from home.  Years ago, I asked a friend of mine if she'd like it if her husband, who put in long hours at a big law firm, could work at home.  I thought she'd say something like "Yes, but the firm won't allow it" but instead, her response was: "No way, if [my husband] were at home, he'd be eating all day and be the size of a house."  I guess that's another, oft-overlooked hazard of working from home (and one which challenges me as well). 

solotips

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Jim Calloway has generously named MyShingle as his website of the week, notwithstanding his perception that I sometimes have a negative view of bar associations.  I'd like to clarify.  Generally, I've lauded the bars for programs like these that help solo and small firm practice law.  Likewise, I'm a huge fan of the work that LPM experts like Jim, Reid Trautz, Pat Yevics and others have done to support solos (and especially Reid, just because I'm most familiar with his work here in DC, a biglaw dominated bar, where he could have easily taken up biglaw interests and ignored solos, but hasn't). 

But while I admire the individuals, I can't help but criticize bar policies or decisions like this or this or this that make life more difficult for solos and smack of unfairness, given that solos are often disproportionately targeted for ethics violations (which isn't to say that we solos don't have our share of bad apples, something that I try to point out so that other solos can learn from their mistakes).   Fortunately, I find myself blogging about this kind of thing less and less as I happen upon many more inspiring stories or good advice worth passing on.  That's certainly the beat I'd prefer to cover.

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Fellow shingler Frank Yunes (www.yunes.org), a trusts and estates attorney from Lexington, MA has an idea for a New Year's Resolution [which I have not been timely in posting - CE] Frank writes:

I just finished the process of forming a single-member LLC for my law firm. I wonder how many of us out there are pure sole proprietors and might benefit from a discussion of how to create a formal entity to shield our personal assets from professional liability.

 

Although we all have liability insurance, in some cases this protection is not quite enough. The creation of a legal entity is an additional layer of protection that might be appropriate depending on your practice area.

The single-member LLC seems to me a perfect fit for attorneys in solo practice. I believe all 50 states now have a single-member LLC statute (if memory serves, MA became #50 in 2003). In addition to the obvious liability protection, a single-member LLC is treated as a "disregarded entity" for personal income tax purposes. This means formerly sole proprietors can continue to file Schedule C with their personal income tax return for as long as the entity is a law firm of one. The formation of a single-member LLC will not, therefore, necessitate filing a corporate tax return like a C or S Corp.

The process of forming an LLC is remarkably easy... In MA we can form an LLC online at the Secretary of State's website. We can obtain a tax ID number ("EIN") at the IRS website in a matter of minutes. A new bank account in the name of the LLC can also be established online. The hardest part is probably deciding what to name the entity! I went back and forth on this (The Law Office of Frank B. Yunes, LLC just didn't sound right to me) and decided on Frank B. Yunes, Attorney at Law, LLC.

I chose to form the entity at the end of the year so I could make a smooth calendar-year bookkeeping transition. Starting Jan 1st, all receivables and payables will be conducted through my LLC. This separation, of course, is critical to any subsequent argument that my law firm is separate from my personal assets!

I feel a sense of relief knowing that if I find myself on the wrong end of a lawsuit moving forward, my personal assets will be more protected than if I were merely a sole proprietor.

 

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Denise Howell modestly offers some tips to enhance your effiency.  They include (1) picking 1-2 devices you like best and consolidate your activities on them (Denise's personal choices are cell phone and Power Book); (2) get a gmail account to eliminate time spent searching email (Evan Schaeffer endorses the gmail tip also) and (3) make online communications secondary to offline tasks like meetings, calls and errands, since you can schedule most onoline communications during your downtime.  The post is short enough for efficient consumption and the tips are simple enough for efficient implementation.

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Over at The Practice, Jonathan Stein ponders whether clients should be billed for smaller incidental costs like photocopying or faxing.  Jon falls on the side of rolling these incidentals into overhead rather than reflecting them on a client bill.

I agree with Jon.  But for me, the much trickier question when it comes to billing clients for expenses is what our obligation is, as attorneys to seek out the lowest cost options when we're passing the costs on to our clients.  The question is more timely now than ever because with the advent of the Internet, we're able to gain access to so much more price information and more readily obtain lower prices than a decade ago.

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From time to time in my practice, I have a need for paralegal type support or quasi-legal  research.  The tasks might include summarizing depositions, finding background on a particular industry, following up on marketing leads, gathering web materials on a recent trend in the law, updating one of  my websites or weblogs or  even doing some very basic legal research like compiling a bunch of statutes or background caselaw on a topic.

Surprisingly, I've found it increasingly difficult to retain qualified people to handle  administative and low-end research needs on an ad hoc basis.  When it comes to outsourcing more heavy weight legal research projects, there are plenty of options.  But the high end research services simply aren't cost effective for low end needs.  I've had no luck hiring law students either; I find that by the time the law school posts my ad and students see it, my need for help has already passed.   Virtual secretaries or paralegals are another option, but most charge a mark-up for short term, "piece work;" and I've found the rates higher than what I care to pay for low end work.  So this month, when a unique research project cropped up (gathering information about a very distinct industry for use in a lawsuit), I decided to turn to Craig's List. 

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In a recent piece for Law Practice Today, (November 2005), Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell list nineteen web logs that deal with law practice management issues, including My Shingle.  You'll want to make sure to include a bunch of these sites in your newsreader, if you haven't already done so.

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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.

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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.

 

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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).

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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.   

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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.

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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?

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For a couple formerly in love, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.  But for lawyers at a firm, who stuck together for the sake of money, breaking up is even more difficult as demonstrated by this article, Court Fight Pits Barnes Firm Versus Defecting Top Lawyer, Michael Beebe (8/28/05).  As the article reports, the split was apparently precipitated by ethics action against Cellino and Barnes, the two name attorneys (we blogged indirectly about it here, decisions are here):

Joseph E. Dietrich III, one of the top two money makers at The Barnes Firm, has quit the personal injury law firm and is embroiled in a court battle over the clients he took with him.  Dietrich, who in the past three years brought in $30 million worth of settlements and verdicts to Cellino & Barnes and its successor, The Barnes Firm, took 41 clients with him following his resignation July 16.  "The reason I left is I believe I can do a better job for my clients outside of that environment," Dietrich said.  Dietrich left a little more than a month after Ross M. Cellino Jr. was suspended from practice for six months and Stephen E. Barnes was censured. The two were disciplined for advancing money to clients through a company they owned and then through one they controlled.   

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A reader who's currently employed but actively planning to start a firm recently posed the following question to MyShingle:

How do I announce to my current employer my intentions to start a firm and leave on friendly terms but still take the clients whom I'd like to take with me (assuming the client wants to leave)?

Our reader is seeking resources on this topic as well as personal experience from other readers who've successfully navigated the transition from law firm employment to solo practice without burning bridges or losing clients.

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Unfortunately, sometimes even solo and small firm lawyers harbor stereotypes about a home office set-up.  But if anyone can put those stereotypes to rest, it would be my fellow blogger and solo, Grant Griffiths, who's just launched this new web log, Home Office Lawyer.   These days, home office is more synonymous with high-tech than homely, as evidenced by Grant's focus on paperless systems and the links to other lawyer home office weblogs which look as professional as any high rent, downtown firm.  So if think that working from home will hold you back, visit Grant's site.  You just might reconsider.

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Have you ever sat down and calculated how much it costs per hour to run your law office?  I haven't (though I know what my overhead and expenses are from my tax returns, just haven't reduced them to an hourly rate).  Yet it seems that most of us ought to know that number off the top of our heads given that we bill by the hour. 

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As this article, Getting Paid, Not Played (Meg Tebo, ABA Journal, 5/19/05) begins, "Getting stiffed is almost like a rite of passage of solo practice."  This article offers a couple of ideas from practitioners to avoid this rite, such as customizing and revising a retainer agreement to facilitate client payments, giving upfront estimates and collecting retainers large enough to compensate for work done if the client fails to pay any more beyond the retainer.

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For those of you who know me personally, you probably know that I'm not the world's greatest marketer.  If I were, I'd probably have retired from the practice of law and would be blogging here full time.  But I think I have a pretty good eye, a sense of what works and what doesn't, even if my judgment usually works better when I'm evaluating others' work rather than my own.  So with that in mind, here are some of my impressions of some of the large firm, "McMarketing" efforts that I observed at a conference I attended earlier this week as compared with my efforts and those of some of my solo colleagues.

It's pretty clear that law marketing has invaded large firm practice - and guess what?  They're all doing the same thing.  Two large firm attorneys spoke at the conference that I attended; both had the requisite power point presentations which they'd also printed out on paper emblazoned with the firm logo and contact information.  Both attorneys gave polished presentations, explaining just enough, in general terms - but not "giving away the store."  In other words, none of the papers cited the statutory support for the matters discussed or listed references where people might go to learn more.  So, that I gathered is Practice 1 of Biglaw McMarketing - give away enough to make 'em call you, but no more.

As for Practice 2, I'm not sure whether it was intended or not, but I'd entitle it "Be Elusive."  The biglaw attorney from DC didn't stick around for any of the conference, didn't attend any of the technical talks (and some of the technology is pretty interesting) and really, just left right after he spoke.  Another large firm attorney flew in for the day of the talk and hung around a bit, but I didn't see him engaged in much chatter either.  Perhaps the large firm marketers need to tell attorneys that you should stick around and talk to the people you're trying to sell to.

As I said, I don't know that my approach is any better.  My talk was loaded with substance - and in retrospect, too much, because I ran over time.  I think for future talks, I'll pare down the substance for the oral presentation and back it up with web based materials or a handout.  But I'm glad I erred on the side of too much rather than too little, because after my talk, several members in the audience complimented me on "really knowing my stuff."  Whether wise or not, I don't subscribe in McMarketing Practice 1 - because while I want to sell my service, I also want to educate my audience, particularly when all but a handful are nonlawyers.  (And which is why I don't subscribe to McMarketing Practice 3 - Speak to Bar Associations - because other lawyers won't likely become my clients, nor, in my field, are they likely to refer me work)

Finally, here's the beauty of not following marketing rules sometimes and just going with the flow.  By the end of the conference, the rumblings about starting a trade association became a true organized effort and I was drafted as Legislative Director and interviewed for the local TV station.  Because of my blogging background (naturally, I touted my professional blog during my talk), I was able to throw together a website for our fledgling organization while others started the efforts on the Hill.  Had I just waltzed into the conference and left after my talk, this opportunity never would have fallen into my lap.  Only I know it really didn't fall, it's the product of a foundation that I've been laying in this field for at least a decade. 

I know we all read so much about Rules of Marketing.  And it's true, we solos need to market and we need to be disciplined.  But structured biglaw McMarketing isn't the solution, not just because of the presumably exhorbitant cost (I've heard that marketing heads at large firms are paid as much as $250,0000) - but also because it doesn't always work.  Sometimes, the best rule of marketing (as with anything else) is to abandon adherence to strict rules and go with your instinct and see where it lands you.

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My Small Firm Business column for the month, Ask A Simple Question as been posted over at law.com  In it, I discuss both the benefits of asking for help as well as places to look that you might not have thought about.  I'd have to credit Professor Steven Lubet and his recent article, Artificial Intelligence as generating the idea for this piece.  Lubet's article argues that law school doesn't teach the skills we need in practice, foremost, the ability to ask questions.  My article is a start towards addressing that gap.

By the way, the next time you feel intimidated or embarrassed to ask a question, just think of me, 40 years old, 16 years of law practice and still asking the best way to draft a request for admission or which side to sit on in the hearing room or how many copies to file.  If I can do it, so can you.

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As if you needed another reason to back up your files, this article offers one that may not have occurred to you but is yet another compelling reason to keep doing it.

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When you start your own practice, you may be solo but you're never alone.  You can't be - or you won't succeed.  This article, No Lawyer Is An Island, Guy Harrison, Small Firm Business (11/29/04) highlights the necessity for solo and small firm lawyers to build relationships with others - from attorneys to support staff and court personnel - whom solos can call on when they need a hand.   

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