Solo In Chicago

I had my thinking on the above triggered by a couple things recently…one was a post by Chuck Newton regarding things he doesn’t like about attorney Websites (one thing in his list being family pictures) and the other being the registration and speaker bios. page for Ms. JD’s Women in Law Conference which I’m speaking at (okay, I don’t claim to know too much about women in the law but I do know a thing or two about starting and building a law firm which is my panel’s topic). Here’s the conference registration page, November 20-21, 2009 at Northwestern in Chicago.

I think you should have 2 professional biographies:  1 client focused & 1 focused on lawyers and other professionals.

The Client-Focused Biography

This is the one that should be on your firm’s Website and perhaps things like firm pamphlets or folders/handouts that you use at client-focused speaking engagements. I think the client-focused biography should do three things:  a) List a very brief description of your schooling and the fact that you are actually a competent attorney; b) Describe the sort of work you do providing specific examples of the types of problems/issues that you can help solve for a client; c) Include a paragraph on totally non-legal things like hobbies, community and church memberships (create potential commonalities and connection points with clients and include a photo). Here’s my biography at my firm’s Website which although it does need a tad of an upgrade I do think includes the three parts described above. Potential clients are looking for someone who can help them solve a specific problem and likely aren’t going to be impressed by that law review article you wrote in law school. And to a lesser extent I’ve gotten positive feedback regarding non-legal, more personal items. Simply listing more information that might cause a potential client to feel more comfortable with you…such as oh I went to the same high school or I do the occasional triathlon too.

The “Professional” & Lawyer-Focused Biography

On this one I’d give myself a much lower grade. Here’s what I used for the above conference:

Peter R. Olson is an Illinois attorney and the founder of The Law Office of Peter R. Olson located in Chicago. He’s in his 8th year as an Illinois family law attorney, advocating on behalf of individuals, families, and children during dissolution of marriage and parentage cases involving child custody, child support, and intricate property issues. He blogs about law practice management issues at SoloinChicago.com. He’s a graduate of both Winona State (MN) and Southern Illinois universities.

It’s too short and doesn’t include nearly enough “professional fluff”…that’s a legal term of art for things articles I’ve written, past conference speaking engagements, courts I’m licensed to practice before, bar association offices held, and of course one’s all important status as Order of the Coif. I state those items a bit with my tongue-in-cheek, but not totally. Think about the purpose of the conference biography…it’s actually more important as a pre-conference marketing tool and less important actually at the event itself. With me I think I view it a lot like a flashy dresser, I don’t want to be that person, rather, I want to impress once I open my mouth. And that’s sort of okay once you’re at the seminar or speech or whatever. But, you’ve got to get people there in the first place and in the marketing materials your only shot is a nice photo and the accompanying biography. So for that next conference I’m going to drop the modesty and tell you all about my exalted time on the SIU law review.

Saw a couple pieces in the general media that peeked my interest and hopefully others…

First, this article entitled, Aspiring Lawyer Finds Debt Is Bigger Hurdle Than Bar Exam about a New York law school graduate who got a NO from that state’s character and fitness panel (meaning no law license) due to his accrual of some $400,000 in student loan debt. There are some unique aspects of his situation namely that he’s 47 and hasn’t made any payments on the debt, but, the general student debt crisis is front and center for law school grads in the last 15 years or so and likely to get worse. I haven’t heard of anyone not getting her license in Illinois but I wouldn’t be suprised if it has occurred and more importantly the typical debt burdens of law school graduates is a huge hinderance on career choices.

Second, and touching on the related issue of student loan debt was this piece regarding a new Education Department program regarding different loan repayment and foregiveness options. Here’s the Department’s release regarding the program. It appears to offer two new options:  an income-based repayment plan which might lower monthly payments (but likely increase total pay-back as interest accrues) & a public service loan forgiveness option (this surely might be worth a look if your employment is of a public-service/government variety).

Particularly for small firm attorneys and also domestic relations attorneys practicing in Cook County.

First, there’s the change to the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure (735 ILCS 5/2-1101) regarding an attorneys ability to issue subpoenas (formerly only done by the circuit court clerk). The change simply adds an Illinois attorney to the group of persons who can issue subpoenas. I suppose all you need to change is instead of the circuit clerk signing/witnessing your subpoena forms now just put your name and perhaps your ARDC # at the botton. I haven’t tried this yet, wonder if some companies might not know of the law change and balk at this…it does “feel” more official coming from the government with the raised seal.

Second, the entire section 13 of the local rules for Cook County governing domestic relations cases were just revamped. As an aside, I’m amazed at how little discussion/publicity this has received…I wouldn’t have heard of this but for the fact I attended a speech by the presiding judge of the division a few weeks back. But how would others know? I think these sorts of things get coverage in the Law Bulletin but who reads that every day. One of the key changes I like is providing for use of a Parenting Coordinator in rule 13.10. These are useful in high conflict cases where there aren’t particularly large and substantive differences between parents regarding visitation and parenting but the two parties are completely incapable of interacting together. A “Parenting Coordinator” is a lawyer-mediator who each parent can contact about minor issues of visitation scheduling rather than involving the court. Hopefully some good, qualified, and affordable attorneys will take on this role.

Peter’s Commentary: A solid month but still short of my monthly gross income goals. Began attending a weekly leads/networking group that included some upfront costs that I hope will payoff in the future. $189 was high for office space expenses but what that really means is we had several new client meetings which should mean higher future income.

Editor’s Note: I meet so many great and interesting attorneys through SIC that after only 4 years I thought it might be useful to hear from some other voices in this space.  I mean there are so many things that I don’t even know that I don’t know…perhaps others know. Plus, I’m a big junkie of good conversation and interviewing so it’s fun for me too.  Russell graduated from the University of Illinois law school, was licensed to practice in November 2006, and started his solo practice earlier this year. Interestingly, he’s also fluent in Spanish which we discuss a bit below, with both English and Spanish Websites.

SIC:  Why’d you start your law practice?

RK:  I started my law practice because I saw that my boss (another solo) was making more
money than I was.

SIC:  Describe the timing of your launch in terms of point-in-career, experience, life factors, and
finances.

RK:  I'm 31 and my wife works and we have no kids yet. I realized that I go solo now while I
have my wife's income and no child related expenses or I never would. My wife takes care of my
day to day expenses. I saved a significant but not massive nest egg to get started. I'm 2 months in
and I still havn't exhausted it.

SIC:  What are your primary practice areas and how did you select them?

RK:  My primary areas are criminal law, family law and bankruptcy. I practice in these areas
because that is what my experience from my prior job was in.

SIC:  How do you office?

RK:  I rent from an older more experience attorney. I can't recommend this enough. My landlord
is an incredible resource who has offered me very affordable rent, great advice, and even a few
referrals.

SIC:  How have you tried to attract clients? What works/doesn’t work for you?

RK:  I personally studied how to appear in Internet searches and put a lot of time into it. It's
complicated and everyone is trying to sell you "the secret to high Google rankings" but you never
really know what you're going to get. I now get a lot of clients off the Internet. I also network like
crazy. I let people know I speak Spanish and have reasonable rates. The only thing I've done that
laid a complete egg was sending out letters to people I didn't know if I didn't follow up. If I
followed up, the letters would pay off sometimes.

 
SIC:  How did set your fees

RK:  I set my fees based on what my old boss used to charge.  My clients are mostly working
class and can't afford big retainers and the possibility of endless bills so I use a flat fee system.

SIC:  What are the best and worst decisions you’ve made in running your solo practice?

RK:  My best decision about starting a solo practice was planning early. I was thinking about this
for over two years. I wrote down every idea and reviewed them constantly.  My opening went off
without a hitch and I immediately started getting paying clients.  My worst decision was billing
too low for my first half a dozen clients or so.

SIC:  I know you’re fluent in Spanish, how have you targeted that niche population?

RK:  I have a Spanish website.  I write letters and personally visit social agencies that deal with
Chicago's Spanish speaking population. I network with every spanish speaking lawyer I meet.  
Soon, I will be hosting legal seminars in a spanish speaking church.  Same as what anyone does, I
guess.  Only in Spanish.

I’ve posted before on the problem of under-billing here and here and for different reasons including several seminars I’ve been involved in of late have been thinking a lot about the problem of under-billing and what a practice killer it can be. I think a decent analogy would be the issue of pricing a house to sell. So my wife and I have a semi-regular ritual of watching TLC’s Property Ladder on Saturday mornings. It’s a program about renovating homes and then flipping them for a profit. And after watching many episodes one realizes the importance of pricing the home for sale after all the renovation is complete. Frequently the first-time flippers will make all sorts of mistakes and go over-budget and miss their timelines, ect., BUT, regardless of how well the flippers did on everything up until the open house (good or bad) if the home is priced improperly the flipper will often be in big trouble and not sell the house.

It’s similar to pricing your legal services. You can do everything else right such as actual lawyering, business management, even marketing and yet really not retain clients and build the kind of business you want if the price ISN’T right.

Trey Ryder’s weekly e-mail marketing newsletter did a great job of explaining this under-billing/under-charging problem (as an aside, the e-mail newsletter is a free sign-up and often quite informative).

Here’s a blurb that underscores the big problem…

ADVICE:  I encourage my clients to charge on the high end.  It’s much better to be the most expensive lawyer in town and have people appreciate your knowledge and experience — than to be the cheapest lawyer in town and have prospects question your skill.

No matter how narrow the audience you’re trying to reach, you can probably find hundreds of prospects in that target audience.  The key is having a competent marketing program that can effectively identify, reach and harvest those prospects so they become your clients.

I’ve had these couple articles in my “to read” pile for a while and both are quite worthwhile…Self-Marketing is key to being a Top Lawyer & What Makes a Lawyer Great?  And look at that one answers the other…well, sort of.

On Self-Marketing…

Everyone has a personal brand even though most don’t seem to know it. Your personal brand is how decision-makers view you. It is the total sum and breadth of your work history, reputation, involvement, initiative and personal values. Brand you is riding on whether people think you are competent, committed, available and willing to offer counsel. Sometimes for free. And often after hours.

Surely something that has hit me over the head over the last 4 years. Question, rank the importance of the following items in building a law practice:  marketing, business management, and substantive legal skill? Sadly when I started my solo practice I would have ranked the items:  1. substantive legal skill; 2. marketing; 3. business management…today, 1. marketing; 2. business management; 3. substantive legal skill.

The definition of an “Appearance” for court purposes - a piece of paper that gets filed that says I lawyer am representing a client as sayeth on the Appearance I’ve filed.  And you’re supposed to file this BEFORE you appear in court to represent a client, with a rare exception or two.  But I always see this abused in two ways and way too often judges let it slide.

First, like I witnessed today, a lawyer shows up a couple hours after the case had been resolved, had not brought any kind of motion (just asks the clerk to have the case re-called), had NOT filed his Appearance and then steps up as if he’s the attorney of record.  If I’m a judge I simply do not let that person address the court until I see a filed Appearance. It’s rife with potential trouble notably in terms of inadvertantly subjecting a person to a court’s jurisdiction where it may not otherwise lay.  And as a laywer it’s just tacky…take 5 minutes, prepare an appearance, drop it in the no fee box, then, go to court.

Second, it perhaps bothers me more when a non-party, non-attorney is allowed to step up and address a court on behalf of a litigant who chose not to appear. And this one has hurt clients of mine more than once where I’m ready to take a default say Order of Possession or something in the landlord/tenant area and I can’t get this done because a judge lets a non-party “represent” a party in court (why have lawyers if non-lawyers can just step up for another party?).

Here’s a teaser for ya to entice you to watch our June 30th Webcast.

SIGN-UP NOW…only 47 seats remaining.

The question:  What’s the worst decision you’ve made in your early years in solo practice? The unanimous answer:  UNDER-BILLING…in other words, under-valuing the worth of your legal services. And it kills you for at least 3 reasons:

• If client pays, you’ve cost yourself that difference between what you’re worth versus what you actually billed.
• You’ve lowered the perceived value of your brand…right or wrong the cost of a product or service often equates to it’s perceived value or luxury.

• You often lower your performance expectations (and actual performance) to match your billing rate. Ideally you give the same effort for your best clients and say that pro bono case but I’ve felt the leak of lowered performance that’s hard to totally avoid

I saw a couple things in court recently I didn’t love and thought I’d write about them here.

First, a lawyer who doesn’t appear on a client’s case in court even though client was told about it in advance.  I observed this while sitting in a courtroom recently and didn’t like it. It wasn’t just entering an agreed order or something like that. There were lawyers for one parent and a child’s representative and then a client who just said my lawyer can’t be here today. You shouldn’t do that both for client perception reasons and ethical reasons. I mean how would you feel if your lawyer essentially says you’re not important…I’m not showing up today. I wouldn’t call that diligent representation (rule 1.3).

Second, lawyer’s who whine about getting paid by their client to me as the opposing lawyer. Obviously this is an issue we all face but I think it’s just plain tacky to complain to your opposing lawyer about it and it’s admitting weakness to your opponent giving her an advantage. I wouldn’t hesitate to file some papers and cause you to do some additional work to push a lawyer out of the case if it helps my client.