The Dreams of a Solo

Time: Friend or Foe?

Forgive me for waxing philosophic for a minute, but I spend a great deal of... you guessed it.... time contemplating the very issue of time.  Talk about the grandest kind of irony.  Time is one of my favorite things to ponder and I am not really sure why.  On occasion it feels as thought we have all the time in the world.  The next thing we know we don't have enough time in the day to get everything down.  It amazes me that some can be so infinite and yet so finite at the same time.  It reminds me of the drastic weather deviations we would see from time to time while I was growing up in North Dakota.  One day it would be 35 degrees Fahrenheit below zero and two days later it would be 40 degrees above zero.  I understand that isn't the perfect analogy but you really cannot appreciate the weather in "Little Canada" (North Dakota) unless you have experienced it firsthand.  In any event, I best get back to the topic or I run the risk of spiraling out of control.

Time as defined on Dictionary.com. Definition of Time.  As you'll see the definition of time is quite lengthy.  I am not going to dissect or nitpick the definition.  Instead, I am just going to briefly discuss the concept of time as it relates to starting and building a law practice.  One usage of time pops up when we first think about going solo.  We ask ourself if it is the right time to go solo.  If not when will it be the right time?  This is fertile ground for excuses and self-doubt.  Next we get to a point when we make the decision to go solo and then we lay out a business plan.  If we are employed or are a law student we may have time on our side.  If we are unemployed or we are days from graduation or the bar exam, then time is wearing the visiting uniform across the field.  Now our infantile business plan sets a start date six, nine or a twelve months out so we are left with time for planning and implementation.  Six months seems like an eternity when you are excited by the idea and let's be honest, impatient.  So in the first few weeks we spend all of our time drafting, fine-tuning, then re-drafting our business plan.  The energy is flowing freely so it is easy to knock out two or more blog posts a day and to brainstorm numerous ways to "brand" or set your law firm apart.  At some point the energy wains and the time remaining before the launch seems like more of a burden than a benefit.  The truth is the time passes at the same rate regardless of how fast or slow we may think.  The differences lie in how we use the time we have.  If we hit the wall in the first month or two of planning, we are in for a difficult fight.  If we keep plugging ahead, we are better able to manage our time to withstand the long-haul.  After all it is a marathon not a sprint. 

When you decide to start you own law firm you may find, as I have, that time is one of the most interesting things to ponder.  You either have too much time on your hands (i.e. idle hands are the devil's playground) or not enough time in the day.  Either way I would advise you to use your time wisely and by that I mean do not sprint out of the gate and do not become lazy.  Maintain control of not only your sanity but your time and probably most importantly your energy.  If you allow the mania to drive the solo train then you are also likely to let the depression serve as the brakeman.  I know of only one person who can both thrive off of the excitement (fist-pumping) and reign in his emotions (ice in his veins) at the same time and he is the best in the world at his craft because of it.  His name is Eldrick Tiger Woods.  I know enough to know that I am not Tiger's equal in either ability or emotional strength.  Because of that and through my own experience I am convinced that allowing your time and your emotions to flap in the wind is a grave mistake.  Do what you can to make time your friend as opposed to your enemy while you make your solo law firm dream a reality.

Last Day, Last Moments of Work

The launch of my law firm officially occurs in less then three days.  In less than thirty minutes I will leave this office and my former job for the last time.  I could not be happier about each of these events.  I have left jobs before so I am used to the fact that there is little fanfare associated with an associates departure.  I do not go out of my way to draw attention to myself in the employment setting.  Today is and will be no different.  Everyone knows that I am leaving.  They know where to find me should a client need assistance.  I am sure some of us will see each other again.  Even so the moment after I publish this post I will log out, shut down my computer, pick up my stuff and head for the door.  No one is here today to make an issue out of it one way or the other.  In an office of 100 there are roughly 10 in the office today.  The transition will be a silent one for now.  To be honest, I would not have chosen it any other way.

Have a great weekend everyone and a great holiday next week.  I will be busy getting everything in the new office set up and running so I may not be able to write again for a while.  Thank you again for all of you help, guidance and support of the past three months.  It is now time to write the next chapter in my life.  I am very much looking forward to this one.  Solo practice and my family, with a bit of golf mixed in.  Until then, good bye and good luck.

Networking and Announcing the New Law Firm

In the midst of the winding down or ramping up period, depending on how you look at it, there are a few activities that I have participated in and others that I hope to complete soon in order to announce to the world (okay I'd settle for my area of the state) that my new law firm will official open on July 2nd.  Some of these activities have been somewhat interesting since I have been in situations where soon to be former co-workers where also in attendence.  This was neither altogether unexpected nor has it been extremely uncomfortable, but the experience is worth noting.  The first such activity was a business networking event through the local chamber of commerce.  Between 250 and 300 people were in attendence for the event so it was very worth the time.  Some of the folks in attendence that know me did not know that I was planning to set up my own law practice.  The good news is those folks and all of the folks I talked with seemed pleasantly surprised and in some cases relieved that I was getting back in the practice of law.

As I left that event I thought about ways in which I could reach a larger audience to effectively communicate the announcement of my new law firm.  While I do not mind seeing the surprise in person, I have a hunch that others would appreciate more of a heads up.  To accomplish that task I have prepared a standard announcement package to send out to around 100 colleagues and contacts in the area.  Many of the receipients will be practicing attorneys, financial planners, accountants and trust officers since my practice areas directly relate to them.  My thought is to provide a call to action of some kind in the announcement to at least get the communication line open.  I am debating whether this call to action will be related to a lunch meeting, a scheduled seminar, or an email response to indicate whether they would be interested in receiving my newsletter or other valuable educational material.  I will let you know which way I decide to go with that.

The other event I attended this week was also very worthwhile.  The young lawyers in our county bar association have joined with an adjacent young lawyers group to form a bona fide young lawyers divisions.  So we had a kick off type event last night for everyone to meet each other.  I view this as being a valuable and worthwhile group since networking with colleagues is important to me, especially when I am a solo practitioner.  For the most part I met and talked with a number of attorneys under 35 who were all working for area firms.  They all thought the idea of going solo was interesting and I gathered that a part of them wished they could do it themselves.  But the security of having a full-time job was just too appealing at this stage for them.  In any event, I am looking forward to developing those relationships with the hope that they will look to me when estate planning or tax law issues come up.  Even if the referral angle does not come together immediately, it is still worthwhile to build that comradery with fellow attorneys.

With two days of full-time employment remaining I am counting the hours as I edge towards the door.  I talked with my boss yesterday and we agreed to transition our relationship from full-time employee to hourly consultant starting July 1st.  The hourly rate we negotiated is very fair to both sides.  The new arrangement will allow things to continue going forward and I will be allowed to run my law practice while assisting on an as needed basis with the firm.  I am glad we could work that out.

My focus from now until next Monday is on announcements, marketing, and office setup.  On Monday I will spend some time reviewing the setup and then starting on some of the work that is there ready to be done.  I cannot emphasis enough the need for planning and action prior to the launch of a new law firm.  If I had not effectively completed tasks along the way I would not know where to start right now.

Last Week of Work Blues

I have officially hit the wall today, Hump Day, right in the middle of my last week of full-time employment before going solo. I suppose I could see this coming since there is really no reason to project out any further than the end of the week, even though there will be a handful of projects that I will continue to assist with on a contract basis. Right now that and the fact that I am very particular about my work are the only things keeping me motivated to get things done. I have done everything in my power to preserve the relationship and so far I am extremely happy with the progress in that regard. After all I am still around here through this week when they could have sent me packing two weeks ago. The promise and excitement that begins next week is almost too much for me at this stage. I feel like a little kid sitting in the classroom two days before Christmas vacation or the end of the school year. The funny part is that I am both the parent and the child in that analogy and the dual roles just makes me laugh. A better analogy might be the little angel and little devil on each shoulder from older cartoons. Take your pick, they each work pretty well.

 

The good news is that it will all be over soon enough. This weekend will see relaxation mixed with small amounts of office setup and a Chicago Cubs game on Sunday. There is nothing like sitting in the bleachers at an afternoon Cubs game in the middle of summer. Plus we will have the honor of watching my new team, the Milwaukee Brewers, fend off their division rival. By the way I am not a bandwagoner. I have been a Brewers fan since moving to Wisconsin a handful of years ago, but the Cubs were my team before that.

 

All told, it should make for a nice transition from one job to the rest of my life don't you think?

Launch Date: T minus 7 days and counting

As you might have been able to figure if you have been following this blog, I have entered my last week leading up to full-time solo practice. So far I am handling everything very well. I have some time towards the end of the week scheduled for office setup and various administrative type tasks around the new office. Since next week is a holiday week I will have additional time to make sure everything is working properly before completely starting the engine. Even with the large amount of planning that I have done it has still been surprising to me just how much stuff needs to get done. The good news is I have been disciplined and motivated to take each item one at a time and see to it that things are taking care of. I am still optimistic that the first month of business will see positive cashflow. The only thing that will keep that from happening will be the lag time between initial consult and completion of the work. But with my estate planning clients I can usually complete the cycle in two weeks, three at the most.

This experience has taught me once again the value that good, directed planning can bring. If I had started looking into some of these details a few weeks or a month ago I would be scrambling to get things done in time for a productive opening. I am not saying that I have done everything perfectly, but I am very comfortable with the pace at which things have progressed. I would recommend a good couple months of planning to anyone pursuing solo practice or a business venture. I would also recommend using some form of public outlet for your ideas, such as I have done with this blog. It has given me added motivation to get things done and to fully analyze each step along the way. Not to mention the feedback from all of the readers and the relationships that have developed over the past three months.

One of my last tasks for this week is setting up the law firm's blog with domain mapping. I decided to use Typepad for the blog hosting and Godaddy for the domain and email services.  I have read some negative feedback regarding Godaddy but I also read some positive things as well.  So far it has been an interesting project since it is a bit different than working with Blogger.  But different does not mean bad.  It is just a new challenge that I look forward to spending some free time tinkering with.  I have not decided if I am going to provide a link in this forum since I have decided to don the Solo Dreamer persona again.  That would be just a bit to obvious.  Maybe I can enlist some of my friends around the blogosphere to help me out with that when the time comes.

This time period is when the fun really starts.  Potential clients can now occupy time slots on my calendar and the prospect of money coming in is finally a very real possibility.  Add to the excitement with the new business the fact that the weather has been great, my wife is enjoying her job and my golf game is in mid-season form and I would say that life is very good right now.  But now is not the time to rest or become complacent.  There is always work to be done.  That is the beauty of law, golf and life in general, you never really master any of them, but it can be fun to practice.

This Lame Duck Stuff Isn't So Bad After All

This may come as big of a shock to many of you as it has to me, but after giving my notice yesterday I have been pleasantly surprised by the reaction around the office.  My immediate boss and the senior manager that I work very closely with have been extremely supportive of my plans.  In fact, we have even discussed carrying on with some consulting type work after the end of the month.  I am not sure if that will come to be, but they are certainly looking forward to having me around for the remainder of the month as opposed to showing me the door.  It probably is important to note again at this point that I am leaving a large regional CPA and consulting firm as opposed to a law firm so the potential for referrals and ongoing consulting work is a distinct possibility.  Neither the firm nor I view the move as creating a new competitor in the market since we both serve different functions within the same general area.

The moral of the story for me has been that I found myself in a situation where I expected the worst out of people when I very well should have expected them to react in accordance with their character.  I should not give them unlimited credit in the character department though because they undoubtedly see the business side of things (referrals) as we move forward as well.  But in the end the process went forward as planned and without incident.  For comparison's sake I thought it was very interesting that one of the senior managers announced his resignation yesterday morning before I had a chance to meet with my boss.  He is leaving to join a certified competitor in the regional market.  As a result it was no surprise to anyone that he has been asked to leave by the end of the day today.  I certainly cannot blame the firm for this response given the circumstances.

As my wife said last night as I arrived home from work, "See, it wasn't nearly as bad as you thought it would be.  You always assume the worst and you get yourself tied into knots.  Then when it works out better than expected you look back and wonder why you got so stressed out about it."  As usual she is exactly right.  Now we move to the next stage which is continuing to preserve this relationship and to develop more potential client relationships to begin the first part of July.

It's Time...

Well ladies and gentlemen this journey will officially take one of its largest steps forward tomorrow morning when I sit down with my boss to discuss my resignation.  I have gotten away from blogging this week because I have been somewhat of a basket case.  Most of this was expected but one major development caught me completely by surprise at the end of last week.  I received a call last week from a recruiter looking to place someone with a local trust department.  Before talking with her I had never thought of that avenue and, to be honest, I'm not sure why I took to time to discuss it with her.  I could only guess that it came at such a time where the pressure of starting a law practice was very prevalent.  When one considers the prospect of leaving a guaranteed salary for the uncertainty of solo practice it is not surprising that you would naturally take some time to consider the options.  I have considered the new option along with and alongside the other two options, stay where I am or continue with the solo law firm.  I have invested a great deal of time and energy working towards my dream of going solo.  In the end I take comfort in knowing that I have fully searched my soul and fully considered my options.  I have no intention of abandoning my pursuit of a solo law practice.  Even as I considered the options and teetered on the fence I believed in myself and I could only see myself as a solo practitioner.  Now all that remains to be done is to buck up tomorrow to deliver the news.  "I Quit!"  Wish me luck.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Focusing on Work During Lame Duck Period

As I mentioned in a prior post my lame duck period of employment has arrived, even though I have not officially announced this to my employer.  What I mean by that is in my own mind I have a timeline at my present employer that does not extent beyond the end of the month.  In their eyes, until I announce next week, this timeline has no end.  I continue to feel bad about this situation when I look at it from the employer's perspective.  But in the end I cannot beat myself up about it because that is just the nature of the business.  This situation can be flip-flopped to describe when the employer knows it is going to terminate an employee.  I understand that all of this is just my internal rationalization of a less than desirable situation.  While I do not enjoy or envision remaining employed by this or any firm, the act of quitting is always a difficult one for me because I generally like the people that I work with and I hate to let people down.  I am sure that everyone who has left a firm to go solo has experienced this to some degree, so I am not unique in my position.  In years past I would move in this direction and the rationalizion would stop me in my tracks.  I would be unable to take the next step because I did not want to ruffle feathers.  So I remained in a position that was far less than ideal and less than desirable in accordance to my goals.  This time around is far different and I have better prepared myself for the process including the impending "I Quit" conversation next week.  That is not to say that I am looking forward to the conversation itself.  Rather I am looking forward to getting it taken care of so it is not hanging in the balance any longer.

That brings me to something I have been thinking about a lot this week as I struggle to focus on anything related to my current employment.  As I mentioned I refer to my present situation as the lame duck period since I am operating on a short time line with a definite end date.  At the same time I find myself with a boatload of work to do on numerous projects that very well may extend beyond the end of the month.  Even in cases where things need to be done in a more timely fashion it is still difficult for me to focus on the tasks without thinking about the fact that I will be gone in less than a month.  I take great pride in my work and in the services I provide to clients, so I do not look kindly upon any outside factors affecting my performance.  I did not anticipate that this mindset or the lame duck period would present such difficult problems.  That is not to say that they are not insurmountable, but it will require more effort on my part to ensure that I remain on task as much as possible.

I am sure that the next few weeks will pass by at a rather fast pace so there is not much room for lacking motivation.  I plan to continue the two headed approach that includes balancing current obligations with future plans.  Striking this balance is without question where the rubber hits the road.  If anyone has any insight as to how you did or how you would suggest handling the issues surrounding the lame duck period I would be very grateful for your feedback.

The Quit Date Has Been Set

After weeks of review, contemplation and agony I am pleased to announce that I have decided, with the help of others, to provide my current employer with 2 to 3 weeks of notice.  That means my target date for project "I Quit" is next week.  More specifically the conversation between my boss and I will take place on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.  I am not sure what to expect from the meeting but I can say that I am looking forward to it for two reasons.  The first being I will not have it hanging over my head any longer.  Second, I can then take the plan out of hiding, officially.  I would like to thank all of you who responded with insight and advise to my questions on this topic.  Your comments and some guidance from one of my closest friends prompted me to handle this situation directly and timely.  The ironic part is the friend I spoke with happens to be a former employer from my first job out of law school.  He was once on the receiving end of my "I Quit" message.  That situation obviously worked itself out by being direct and timely since I am still friends with him.  I have no reason to believe that this will be any different.  And if they walk me out, they walk me out.  I will just have more time to dedicate to growing my law firm.