The Dreams of a Solo

Happy 4th of July

 The Independence Day weekend has given me an opportunity to "deprogram" so while I had the opportunity I wanted to wish everyone a happy 4th of July.  I read something interesting the other day that the 4th of July was the second most celebrated holiday in the U.S. after Christmas.  Now I have to admit that I'm not sure celebrated is the appropriate word, but I took it to mean that the majority of us would say that Christmas is at the top of our list and Independence Day is second.  That isn't altogether surprising to me:  God then Country.

Our second president could not have been more prophetic about future Independence Day celebrations than when he wrote the following in a letter to his wife, Abigail, in 1776.  We'll have to forgive him for being off by 2 days.  The Declaration of Independence was approved by the delegates on July 2, 1776, but they didn't sign it until over a month later.

I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore.
— John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776

Happy 4th of July.  I hope you are all able to celebrate with the the people you care about the most.  Stay safe, have fun.  Our country's 233rd year is our opportunity to make our little slice of the world a better place.

Don't Call it a Comeback

I really cannot believe that it has been over a year since I have written a post.  Time flies I guess.  The truth is for the last eight months I have not been able to write anything on this solo/small practice niche blog because I am no longer in solo practice.  In the Fall of 2008 I closed the doors on my law firm and joined a 14 attorney firm in Madison.  What I've come to realize during that period of time has been both expected and a surprise.  What I mean by that is we all know what we give up to join an existing firm.  I expected to give up some freedom and independence.  I also expected to have more resources at my disposal, colleagues to bounce ideas off of, and the security of a guaranteed income.  I was surprised to find that some of those this are illusory at best.  Every firm that I have ever been a part of has virtually the same dynamic when it comes to each attorney's role and each attorney's respective practice.  Yes it is beneficial and comforting to know that you have additional resources and sounding boards for questions/ideas, but in my experience it is really nothing more than a collection of solos or small firms that occupy the same office space. 

That may sound at first glance that I am rethinking my decision to trade in the solo life for the opportunity to join a firm.  The reality is that my mindset has largely not changed at all from the way at looked at things 8 months ago.  The fundamentals that I wrote at length about for over a year are still applicable to building a practice while employed or from within a typical law firm.  You may find another layer of bureaucracy from time to time, but if you position yourself correctly this can be limited more often than not. 

I'm not entirely sure what my mindset was when I first began this new endeavor in the Fall.  I can safely say that I didn't have the focus that had grown from my passion to build my own practice.  It took me almost 3/4 of a year to realize that the opportunity for growth existed.  The solo practice life is very difficult in the early stages.  My practice was open for 15 months.  It was an exciting and stressful time.  I thoroughly enjoyed many parts of the business and not a day goes by when I don't think about what I could have done better and whether I could do it again.  Ultimately, I decided to close the business, as most businesses do, when I was presented with an employment opportunity and it was apparent that I was behind my projections.  I'm doing my best not to romanticize what happened because it wasn't the happiest of days.  It is never pleasant to admit that you did not meet your expectations.  It is less pleasant to admit that you did not meet your expectations and you can identify things that you should have done differently or that you could have worked harder.  I take full responsibility for the fate of my solo practice. 

Like so many things it is amazing to see what comes out when you stop bottling up your thoughts and emotions.  My dream job was/is being a solo practitioner.  The ship hasn't sailed, but it would take a dinghy to get to it from the pier right now.  At the present time I am going to focus on building a practice in my new city and with my new firm.  I also plan to refocus on this blog.  Part of this plan is to expand the blog topic areas to include not only starting a solo practice but the building of a "solo" practice within an existing firm.  We'll see where this road takes us.    

Demonstrating Success Over Time

While it has not been years or decades since I started my law practice, the last few months have revealed an interesting phenomenon.  I have noticed that the people I come in contact with have quickly transitioned from "So you are just starting out" to "I have seen and/or have heard that things are going very well."  Given the relative youthfulness of both my practice he term "time" in this context is limited in duration.  However, as each week passes the word on the street carries a more mature tone.  From the outset the reaction I have received both directly and indirectly has been positive, but a part of me always noticed slight hints as to the messenger's familiarity and comfort level with the new law practice.  I have to admit that on some level my senses were picking up on the little voice inside my own head called self-doubt.  But I have to believe that some people were waiting to see how things would shake out before they felt that my law practice deserved to be taken seriously.  To be honest I did not expect it any other way.  There is a reason that long-standing firms or companies are in a better position to succeed, at times, than newer ventures.  Consumers, potential clients, and referral sources take comfort in a proven track record.  This is not a revolutionary phenomenon by any stretch, but that does not diminish from the profound impact that a solid reputation can have on the health of a business.

As I inch closer to the one year anniversary of the opening of my firm I have had reason to reflect on some of the events of the past ten months.  One event that draws my immediate attention is the addition of Nick Hoffman to my firm nearly two months ago.  I mention that because the timing of this addition corresponds with my first observations of the changing perception.  It was almost as if the stadium of interested and casual onlookers mutually agreed that doubling the size of my firm indicated a bull market.  I can neither agree nor disagree with that assessment.  I can say that the addition did come at a time were things really started to come into focus from a business perspective.

This has all reinforced in me something that a parter at a firm I once worked for told me.  He always said that sustained success in the practice of law requires two things: time and solid lawyering.  To a large degree both factors directly impact each other in some way or another.  While I agree with this former partner in large part, I also believe that his recipe for success represents an overly simplistic view of the business of law.  There is no doubt in my mind that the passage of time coupled with superior legal work will bolster one's reputation, which in turn will contribute to the ongoing success of a law practice.  But what we are really talking about here is the business of law not necessarily the practice of law, since reputation is one, if not the most important factor when it comes down to getting clients in the door.  After all the brightest and most competent attorney without any clients will be out of business just as quickly as an incompetent attorney without any clients.  Therefore, I would make one addition to his list: networking.

So in my estimation the best way to build a successful, sustaining law practice is to make time for networking to acquire new clients, to invest the time in takes to complete the required legal work at a very high level, and to allow the passage of time to bolster your reputation and the perceptions of others.   Sounds simple right?  While that may not necessarily be true, it is definitely "doable."  So get out there and make it happen.

Get to Know Those in the Know

There is one area of the business of law that is more important to the starting and building of a law practice than any other.  It comes as no shock to many if not all solo attorneys that I am talking about the "getting clients" portion of the business plan.  After all we can be the best technical practitioners in the world, but if no one retains us we will be nothing more than a starving artist.  I also consider it to be the most important area because all other business or practice related issues fall by the wayside if we don't have a sustainable revenue stream.  In other words, it will not matter if our firm is structured as a sole proprietorship or a professional service corporation or whether we design a office network based on Macs or PCs if we have no clients to serve.  It is readily apparent that the task of acquiring clients is an art form that is not even remotely addressed in the hallowed halls of legal education.  We are expected to learn the craft as we begin our legal careers in a sort of apprenticeship under the tutelage of our managing partner at our first place of post graduate legal employment.  That is all well and good except for one or two main issues that inhibit this process.  First, managing partners are often very busy themselves and quite possibly they are inept in regards to teaching these skills.  Second, the law firm has competing motives.  It is not always in the firm's best interest to enable its associates to be "rainmakers" or to teach associates the "tricks of the trade" since it will make it more difficult to keep the empowered associated in lock step. 

The reality is that once our name is on the door or towards the top of the letterhead it is absolutely essential that we succeed in the area of client acquisition.  I was fortunate to have a great mentor as a managing partner when I first moved to Appleton, Wisconsin.  He took every opportunity to teach me not only the substantive areas but also how to develop and nurture professional relationships, which is the lifeblood of a referral based practice.  However it is difficult and unreasonable to expect that we will see results immediately upon implementation of these pearls of wisdom.  It is often said that it is common to see law firms commit to a marketing plan when work slows down instead of committing to a more constant campaign.  The reason a more consistent and methodical approach works is because we need to stay at the front of the minds of our centers of influence.  Sporadic contact is simply burst advertising that may produce short-term results, but it will never produce a sustainable source of business.

The purpose of this particular post is to address one component of what I deem to be an effective marketing approach.  There is no denying that the more contact you have with men or women who are powerful centers of influence, the better chance that you parlay those contacts into additional business.  I refer to these folks as the people in the know.  For me the highly sought after contacts are successful financial professionals, CPAs, trust officers and other attorneys.   Different areas of law breed different centers of influence.  The core principals are the same regardless of what type of law you practice.  It is unreasonable to belief that clients will simply find you once you hang out a shingle.  Our task is to find the best way to reach the client and often times that may be through a referral from another trusted advisor.

Identify the people in the know that you want to get to know and take steps to get in front of them.  The first meeting may be nothing more than an introduction or it may be a business lunch.  Whatever works for you and the desired contact.  I try not to spend much of our time in the first meeting talking about business if at all possible.  My main objective is to get to know each other and to get to know what each of us do.  If it comes across as simply a sales call I am not sure that would be very effective.  After the introduction follow-up and stay in touch.  You'll have plenty of time to talk business on an ongoing basis in the future.

Designing and Implementing My Law Office Network

This post is timely for me since I have recently added another attorney to my law practice, which prior to the addition consisted of just me.  Due to my true solo size and structure I had little need for a network at the computer.  The nice this is office space I occupy is wired sufficiently to provide me with the opportunity to create a simple peer-to-peer network and to park my network capable multi-function machine at a workstation outside of my office.  This simple office network has significant limitations and I am completely comfortable saying that I only know the half of it.  I am not an trained IT professional, but as the head chef and chief bottle washer of this operation I have no choice but to brandish a million different hats.  If that sounds like a complaint I must clarify, because I absolutely love being responsible for each and every aspect of running a small law practice.  I admit, that sounds a bit weird, but I do very much like the different things I get to (some would say have to) do on a routine basis.  Anyway, I realized today that we are going to have to take our little office network up a couple of notches in the very near future. 

The bottom line is that I need a stand-alone computer or server to maximize the effectiveness of our network.  Right now we basically use my MacBook Pro as a quasi-server because everything flows through my hard drive and the backups are done from that point.  As you might expect this creates an interesting (okay debilitating) result if my computer is not connected to the network, since my colleagues computer will no longer have access to client files, forms, etc. 

To remedy this I spent some time today looking at the possibility of using a Mac Mini as a server for our network.  That way we can centralizing everything on the Mini and the system will still perform effectively when either of the two laptops are off or disconnected.  It will also provide a central location for backing up the data files.  From everything I have found this appears to be a viable option, but I will have to spend more time researching it before I make a decision.  I'll report back my decision and my review of the process during and after implementation.  In the interim I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions on the topic of creating a office network for a small law firm.  As always any insight is very much appreciated.