How would you like 25 tons coming at your little, old law office?

Yeah, I wouldn’t either but not all your clients are shall we say emotionally stable. I saw this article recently:

EDWARDSVILLE • A 42-year-old Collinsville man was being held on a charge of damaging government property Monday after he allegedly tried to back a truck up to a door of the Madison County Courthouse.

Roy L. Conger Jr. of the 400 block of South Jefferson Avenue in Collinsville allegedly damaged landscaping and concrete stairs at the courthouse, located at 155 North Main Street in Edwardsville. He was being held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

Edwardsville police were called about 4:15 a.m. Police said the tractor-trailer truck had become stuck on the south steps of the courthouse. They said Conger left the scene but surrendered at the nearby Madison County Jail.

Court records show Conger had been involved in recent court wrangling over child support. His motion to reduce payments had been denied earlier this month.

Conger apparently sought a reduction based on loss of a job but Associate Judge Keith Jensen said in an order denying the motion that Conger’s own actions caused the job loss.

That’s the trick…quickly ascertaining and differentiating between the ‘potential clients’ from the junk, no?

An inexperienced, no staff, ‘true solo’ over at the Linkedin Solo Attorney Practitioner’s Forum raised this question and there was a great discussion full of wonderful tips from lawyers of varying experience levels and practice areas about the art of handling potential new client calls. Here are some thoughts I culled from the discussion and my many, many years of practical experience…

Personally my preferred method of handling initial telephone calls from potential clients when my legal assistant is working is for her to take the call and then schedule the potential client for a 15-minute Mini-Consultation at a set date/time in the future with me. I hate playing phone tag and constant interruptions are hugely damaging to my ability to get substantive legal work completed. The Mini-Consultation is free of charge.

What if you have no staff and the person answering that first phone call is YOU?

I’d suggest thinking about these initial calls as 2 parts sales and 1 part ethics.

I’m selling 3-4 potential services…1) an initial, in-office, paid consultation; 2) a present full/typical legal representation; 3) a future full/typical legal representation; or, 4) goodwill and possible future referrals.

One poster in the forum referred to these sorts of consultations as “20 minute advertisements.” You don’t get a much more captive audience than the person who has made the effort to find you and call you and now you’re having very personal conversation with this person. I think that’s a great thought to have in mind when these sorts of people give you a ring. I could envision a strong sales/attorney whose role is only to take these initial sales calls and conduct initial sales meetings.

Of course some callers are just trying to pump you for free legal advise or are just price shopping. If it smells like this type of caller, very quickly mention “I charge X per hour and need a Y retainer…would you like to hire me?” Also, ask where the caller got your telephone number. If it’s a strong referral from your best friend you likely want to give more latitude versus the person who did a random Web search.

There is a segment of lawyers however who decline to discuss a potential case with a potential client except in-office, for a fee. The mind-set here being your time is valuable and also a good point made that I agree with is that often the initial legal advice given is the most valuable legal advice. In other words much of the initial advice where often very large, macro-level decisions are made is often the most critical lawyering done with a potential client and thus you should be compensated for such valuable advice.

And I suppose eventually that’s where all lawyers would like to be…getting compensated for the maximum possible % of their time. In my opinion the ideal to shoot for is a practice that both runs itself and that sells itself primarily through marketing to current/former clients and referral sources.

As for the 1 part ethics, well the question is how would this initial caller be classified and might this initial caller possibly hurt you?

In Illinois our rule 1.18 of the Rules of Professional Conduct likely would define these callers as “Prospective Clients.” Your duty to these Prospective Clients is very similar to your duty to former clients which is basically the potential conflict of interest scenarios and you’re not allowed to represent another person or interests opposed to a prospective/former client.

This sort of initial, brief telephone conference shouldn’t give rise to an attorney-client privilege generally although the use of a non-engagement letter following these brief conversations or meetings would be recommended. If not these innocuous phone calls could move towards legal malpractice scenarios.

What camp are you in when it comes to these telephone inquires?

Personally I think that clients change lawyers more than they should and often to their detriment. I suppose it’s emblematic of a greater societal impatience and an inability to delay gratification. Instead of developing trust and deep understanding with their lawyer (and vice-versa) too often clients bail when a single ruling doesn’t go their way.

The impact on lawyers? It’s inevitable that once in a while You’re Not Your Client’s First Lawyer. Sometimes that’s good, bad, or ugly.

The Good. Many times, unfortunately, clients have good reason to fire lawyers due to  sloppy lawyering and bad customer service. What’s “The Good”? Well, if you’re following the bad lawyer it’s actually a nice and often easy opportunity to differentiate yourself in a very positive way. I took a position earlier in my career where unbeknownst to me the attorney who I was replacing had essentially ignored 35 active case files…no communication, cases dismissed due to missed court dates, and generally an utter mess. Thus just by meeting and calling clients about their cases and doing things I’d always done like providing them with copies of any paperwork or court orders related to their case I was able to look pretty good in comparison. In that situation it wasn’t hard to look good in comparison to my predecessor. The same opportunity exists most times when You’re Not Your Client’s First Lawyer.

The Bad. Of course it’s just as likely that a lawyer/client “divorce” is caused by a client and that’s a big reason for concern When You’re Not Your Client’s First Lawyer. In my experience unreasonable clients are the most common reason for lawyer/client firings…things like unrealistic expectations and inordinate telephone calls or e-mails, payment problems too. You MUST ascertain a client’s motives for firing or being fired by a previous attorney when choosing to represent this sort of client. These clients are a recipe for potential disaster and a likely bogus ARDC complaint when thorough lawyer due diligence isn’t done in advance.

The Ugly. I recently observed a situation where a client’s current attorney who I know to be a very solid practitioner was sort of undercut due to the bad lawyering of a client’s previous attorney(s). Client’s previous attorney had not complied with basic discovery provisions from more than a year prior and the client’s previous attorney had not turned over her file over to the client. Fast forward to the client’s trial and the opposing lawyer questions client about her finances and client mentions certain accounts that she hadn’t previously disclosed in discovery from more than a year ago. Opposing lawyer pulls out an old discovery production request where he’d asked for all account information and, well it didn’t get better from there on substance or with regards to the client’s perceived credibility.

After observing the last example above I was about ready to institute a hard & fast rule that I would simply NEVER take-on new clients When You’re Not Your Client’s First Lawyer. But I don’t think that’s realistic…that’s too much business to turn my back on.

However, I think lawyers are wise to be very hesitant in retaining clients When You’re Not Your Client’s First Lawyer and should consider the following:

• Do some serious questioning of a client regarding the previous lawyer/client relationship and ascertain why it ended. Was it bad lawyer customer service? Was it an unreasonable and non-paying client? Might you contact the previous lawyer for further explanation?
• Get the client’s entire file directly from the previous lawyer.
• If the case is active/in court, contact opposing counsel about case status and ask about any outstanding obligations or discovery requests.

As a Chicagoan during our current election season I equate “Before it’s too Late” with the 1983 Chicago mayoral election between Bernie Epton and Harold Washington. It was one of Epton’s campaign slogans with more than a hint of racial undertones…actually a very fascinating campaign to review for you political scientists out there. But SIC is a small firm lawyer blog all about Growing Your (Our) Practice so…

I’ve had a rash of new clients lately who have retained us TOO LATE! Not too late to help them (we wouldn’t take their money if we couldn’t help them) but surely later than would be ideal. Do you have this problem too? And what’s the solution because this is more of an ‘identify a problem’ post than a ‘give readers a solution’ post.

Here are the personal examples I’m talking about, such as people who don’t have representation when dealing with parentage decisions (I don’t mean the sex). Meaning people are committing themselves to legal parentage before knowing the ramifications. Or, father’s in parentage cases who ignore the retroactive child support issue and then just “take” a $10k judgment against them that could have been avoided. Or, people who let the other parent go to another state with kids and kill their parental rights. And each of these examples involve people who became clients of ours to help with subsequent issues but HUGE ISSUES had already be given away due to their actions before I was their attorney.

Why do people consistently make this mistake & how can we help clients to stop making it?

I suppose at some level this is a general “inertia problem” like anyone with a ‘To Do’ list that gets done slowly, but, the ramifications can be far more severe in the context of legal matters. Further, this can be the downside to DIY (Do-It-Yourself) or to invoke my favorite Rumsfeldian quote there’s that category of things “we don’t know that we don’t know.”  I just retained a client who hurt his case greatly because when he was pro-se he consulted Dorothy Brown’s Website (Court Clerk of Cook County, Illinois) regarding how to serve process and 5 months later his son and the child’s mother are halfway across the country despite the fact that she “needs” to get leave of court to leave Illinois w/ the child.

And the solution?

• Client education marketing. I’m going to include a short video on this topic in the context of parentage cases in our October client newsletter as a first step.
• Summons alert. Can greater alerts be included on the summons and initial documents a litigant receives?
• Remove “case bias.” This is the public policy problem that I’d like to work to change…the bias in favor of child support obligors often at the expense of an involved and intact family. Or the defendant bias that seems to exists in mortgage and landlord-tenant cases. Note that many of my personal examples surely come from the disfavored party in Parentage Act cases.

Even if it’s been a few years since you’ve paged through a copy of Robert Southey’s children’s tale of Goldilocks & the Three Bears you probably recall the little girl Goldilocks who stumbles through the forest into the home of three bears. Goldilocks proceeds to try the 3 bowls of porridge, the 3 chairs, and the 3 beds, eventually settling on the one that was JUST RIGHT!

Two of my current active cases and the opposing lawyers in those cases has got me thinking about what’s “Just Right” when balancing the speed/thoroughness continuum in providing legal services. On the one hand there’s the case where we’ve been waiting 5 months to get a couple of lien releases so my client can proceed with a mortgage refinance. Five months ago the opposing lawyer said she’d agree to a compromise payment in return for the lien releases…5 months later NOTHING (Granted, the lawyer can surely change her mind but she’s consistently said that she’ll take the payoff in exchange for the release of liens & yet we wait). At the other extreme is a case that should be a ho-hum negotiated dissolution of marriage. Meaning, there’s general agreement about child custody arrangements and property settlement but settlement documents still must be prepared and perfected which typically take a couple months between 2-3 drafts, letters back-and-forth, plus a client meeting or two.  Yet in this case the lawyer shoots off harried & sloppy letters with grammatical errors and issues left unaddressed. And even more annoyingly he includes these false deadlines at end of his letters with threats like “if you don’t respond by Friday then we’re going after you’re client’s retirement accounts.” So there’s too fast/sloppy and there’s the glacially slow (or never).

How ’bout JUST RIGHT?

Thoroughness & Attention to Detail Should be Your Calling Card (Trumps Speed). As a non-criminal attorney 2 keys for me as a lawyer are making sure every word is correct and every issue is covered. Simple, but not always easy when you’re dealing with thousands of words. Completing work in a timely fashion isn’t something to be ignored but personally with the exception of real estate transactions, deadlines are mostly self-imposed or surely court deadlines when hearings/trials approach are critical but our court system doesn’t move too fast now does it. And if you’re hourly billing more thoroughness equals more money too!

It’s the Communication, Stupid! I attended a great seminar yesterday put on by the ISBA entitled Presenting with Excellence put on by Steve Hughes of Hit Your Stride. Steve gave some great hints about learning styles, physical learning environments, PowerPoint, and verbal/non-verbal delivery. Of course the 1 word seminar title:  COMMUNICATION. It was kind of funny speaking to the guy sitting next to me as we hearkened on about how sooooo many issues from marriage to politics to darn near all that we do professionally as lawyers in some way relates back to simple communication. And while each lawyer and client has their own personal expectations that vary greatly across the public spectrum that can’t all be known, the Goldilocks Lawyer focuses on consistent GREAT COMMUNICATION.

Your Credibility & Reputation Depend on It. Because what would you think about the 2 lawyers mentioned above if you’re the opposing lawyer/client or if you’re their client? Personally I abhor the lawyer who is sloppy and falsely threatening…he’s creating more work due to sloppiness and angering everyone involved. Being a slow & thorough lawyer isn’t a bad thing, that’s just a communication problem. Just tell everyone what’s going on & why. I was on a flight a couple years ago that was delayed for a long time and eventually we were put on a whole other plane due to a mechanical problem. Yet the passengers were constantly communicated to, various snacks were constantly provided, and the airline was honest and really do you want to get out quickly on a damaged aircraft? Conversely, just last week my commuter train actually failed to stop at my stop (although it was scheduled to stop)…blew right by it. It stopped at the next stop, zero communication…good luck getting home to you folks. Who took the credibility/reputation hit?

Are you a Goldilocks lawyer for your clients? That’s really what we’re talking about…lawyering ain’t math, there are many right answers and different people like different “flavors.” But I’d suggest great thoroughness and great communication will help make you Just Right!

We were recently retained by a client strictly based on the above. It felt quite good actually. This is an entity client and the point person in charge of finding an attorney happened to be an old friend of mine. Sadly (but not particularly unusual) she’d had some poor experiences with a number of attorneys they had worked with recently so they were looking elsewhere. This person had known me for several years, although we had lost touch for several years too, knew I used to practice in the area in which they needed representation and….great, we’ve got ourselves a new client.

Do you have clients like these? Do you want some? I wouldn’t mind a few more myself. I think this concept and client-type is very much at the core of Clients for Life which is a great read and something I’ve written about in the past. Because these sorts of people who just trust you and your judgment implicitly are the sorts of clients who will be your clients for like 30 years and probably refer another 30 clients to you over those thirty years. I call that cost efficient advertising.

And yet I observe many habits in lawyers too often that specifically undermine a client’s trust. Some examples:

Lawyers OVER-Promise & UNDER-Deliver. I see this most frequently in simple timing stuff…suggesting something will be done more quickly than is realistic but also in putting forth unrealistic predictions of a case result. Talk through all possible scenarios realistically.

Lawyers DON’T Tell Clients What They DON’T Want to Hear. I find that if I’m agreeing with a client too much there’s often a problem. The problem being I’m sugar-coating things instead of laying out some tough realities that may not be pleasant for a client. Good clients like good leaders want competent and strong advisers around them who are tough, smart, and are leveling with them about ALL possible scenarios.

Lawyers That Aren’t Thorough or Detail-Oriented Enough. I just spoke with a lawyer friend in the last week who called asking me about a post-divorce situation where this new client’s divorce settlement documents included 2 provisions regarding these parents’ (ex-spouses) daycare expense obligations that were wholly opposite of one another. Meaning, in one place the judgment said mom pays for all daycare expenses and in another place judgment said mom/dad split these expenses 50/50. Would you trust the lawyer scrivener of that document again in the future?

These Really ARE Clients for Life. So treat them that way! And beyond just the above, don’t be nickle-and-diming them for the occasional phone call, but rather be constantly looking out for their interests and sending them related notes/articles.

These sorts of clients are BIG. Look, I do plenty of my 1-time, quick legal representation…it’s good work sometimes and necessary. But these great clients who really like and trust you are the clients who make your practice thrive for the long term.

I’m pretty surprised at many lawyers’ inability to avoid discussing certain topics with opposing counsel that in my opinion make themselves look bad or more importantly, weaken their clients case. Personally, I think discernment when it comes to topics to discuss and facts to volunteer is in like the top 3 “must have” skills for lawyers. Yet I come across many lawyers who suffer from diarrhea-of-the-mouth. It’s a common American malady but Jane Public just makes herself look like an idiot whereas Jane Lawyer potentially weakens her clients case immensely.

Here are two that stick in my craw…and one is VERY detrimental to your client too:

1.  Complaining about not getting paid by your own client. I don’t see this a lot but I had it come up just this week and it’s really what motivated this post. I have a fairly small $$ case regarding return of some personal property from a client’s former commercial tenant that has dragged on for a while. Well, in court this week the Plaintiff’s lawyer complains that his client has only paid him some $500 and is way behind on paying attorneys fees and the lawyer didn’t sound too confident in ever getting paid. It’s not that I don’t empathize with his plight because I have client payment problems too and it’s likely the most important topic discussed on SIC. But when you discuss it with opposing counsel I don’t think you’re acting in your client’s best interests. Because now I know this lawyer is hanging by a thread and if it’s in my client’s best interest to get him out of the case I wouldn’t hesitate to flood him with a little paperwork to push him out.

2.  Personal attacks on an opposing client. Individually, I just find this utterly tacky and unprofessional but generally NOT AS hurtful to your client as #1 but it can hurt your client too (so why do it?). This comes up more than #1 through little snide comments by so-called professionals who can’t help over-personalizing a case. The worst I personally experienced was at Cook County’s primary parentage courthouse (32 W. Randolph, Chicago) a few years back where there was a visitation dispute and my client was the mother and the opposing female attorney just got in my client’s face attacking her about allegedly hurting the child’s relationship with her client (father). The only reason I can think of as to why this sort of behavior ever occurs is perhaps a lawyer trying to create the perception that she’s “aggressive” to her client. Of course the real result is damaging the relationship with the opposing counsel, hurting communication, and likely hurting a client’s case…not to mention likely causing the case to be a more expensive endeavor too.

Don’t forget about the meaning of the relationship:  Fiduciary Duty. It means acting in your client’s best interest…not just doing what feels good.

I recently finished up Ken Gormley’s, The Death of American Virtue, an excellent and balanced analysis of the Clinton Impeachment saga. Mr. Gormley is the dean at Duquesne’s law school and a former biographer of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.  Just briefly on the subject of the book, it’s a wonderful, descriptive read dredging up those 1970s Arkansas land deals through the early and undisciplined Clinton Administration, the rise of Newt, appointment of Independent Counsel Ken Starr and the Senate’s failure to convict President Clinton of the articles of impeachment. Personally, I spent two years of my life working on Capitol Hill, 1998-1999 so I have more than a little first-hand knowledge of the initial Drudgereport leaks in January ’98 to Clinton’s “I have never had sexual relations with…that woman” and Newt’s subsequent demise after the November ’98 elections.

But why am I posting here about political trivia when Solo In Chicago is all about the practical steps necessary to grow a great law practice?

Two words:  Bill Ginsburg (Monica Lewinsky’s first lawyer). I wasn’t a lawyer back during my Washington years so perhaps I didn’t care about Ginsburg too much but now it’s a great and instructive point for lawyers everywhere. And that’s where this post’s title comes from. Ginsburg was one of the best attorneys in the business when it came to defending hospitals and physicians in nasty, high-stakes medical malpractice litigation (pg. 369). In early years of practice, he had defended swimming pool manufacturers in horrible death and accident cases, racking up an astounding won-loss record (pg. 394). So he was likely primarily a California state court litigator. But of course Monica was facing a potential federal, criminal indictment regarding her possible perjury in only the most publicized legal proceeding of all time.

But put aside the media maelstrom, and it’s the same decision we all face every so often…when to take and not to take that case that’s outside your “regular” practice area.  So what’s the answer…should you take that case? Consider 6 questions/factors:

• Would the case involve practicing in a totally “foreign” court/legal system? Meaning a different state/county or federal vs. state court or civil/criminal.  I think this might be the first level and most challenging hurdle and one that should be crossed most carefully. Personally, I do get to multiple counties although not too frequently…it’s awkward but doable since the underlying state law is the same but the different local rules and customs need to be known too. However, the federal to state court and criminal to civil practice (or vice versa) are far more challenging. I’ve handled 5-10 low-level criminal matters and even those have been dicey, not in terms of results but just the criminal procedures and proof standards and the potential criminal punishments/ramifications.
• Is the case/subject a logical or potential future extension of your current practice? If yes, I think this would be a great reason to take a case outside your regular practice area. For example, my practice is some 75% involved with parentage, divorce, and various modification/enforcement issues involving parentage and divorce cases. If someone calls about an adoption or child abuse related allegation to me those would be obvious extensions of “family law.” Further, our firm has thought about some non-family law areas of expansion such as elder and immigration law due to certain demographic trends. Again, new cases come in those areas, I’m takin’ them.
• What are the ramifications if you screw things up? It’s true and critical. I wouldn’t take on any felony level criminal matter because I don’t want many years in prison on my conscience for the next 40 years. A few years back I took over a real estate transaction for a friend of mine who been trying to handle it for a relative of his and he had really had not known what he was doing. So I picked-up the ball, there was a slight delay in the deal and because of the delay the Buyer (I had the Seller) got a $2,000ish price drop out of it, but the deal eventually closed uneventfully. Was it mishandled? Yes. Were the potential ramifications serious enough that he shouldn’t have taken on the matter? I think not.
• Do you have access to people/resources to help you? Here I think you need to balance the difference between the occasional question that you might pose to a mentor or an online group which we always have vs. the need for constant hand-holding which might be too much to expect. Second, simply how are your legal research skills and do you have access to the proper resources to handle the case? Just recently I’ve been dealing with a replevin matter and a rare temporary restraining order issue. And these weren’t issues I knew just off the top of my head but I did know generally what each situation involved and it was simple legal research within the Illinois Compiled Statutes so no biggie.
• Balance the Opportunity Cost. Meaning, we shouldn’t just look at the effort necessary to handle the new case outside of your regular practice area, no, we also must weigh the lost opportunity to work on other things that you can’t spend time on due to the new case. This is very unique to the individual lawyers circumstances both currently and her future plans. I think the primary consideration here is what are you giving up (if anything) to take on the new, unfamiliar case? Subject to some of the previous analysis above, simply, if you’re practice is less than full and taking on the new, unfamiliar matter would have no impact on servicing your regular practice areas, ya take the case. Conversely, if your practice is 110% full taking on one unfamiliar matter likely would take the time for more than one of your typical cases due to familiarity with the subject matter, you probably don’t take on the unfamiliar matter. My exception to that simple analysis would be any future expansion planning for your business. We want to grow into the elder law market so I would selectively take a case or two in that area as a trade for 3 divorce matters based on future planning goals.
• Can you help a client, former client, or referral source? Since this group is so critical to your business you should bend-over backwards for them. Personally, this ends up of being some simple estate planning in my practice. Of course the key word here is HELP not screw-up their cases.

So what about Attorney Ginsburg? I haven’t heard any of his personal analysis of his role in Monica-gate. Personally, even leaving aside the media glare unique to that case, I’d have a hard time taking on the case due to point #1 above. The jump from state/civil court to federal/criminal would be too big of a jump for me.

But, in general, my observation is that lawyers are too conservative in taking on new, less familiar matters. Don’t leave that $$$ on the table if you can put it into your pocket.

Know your research, be aware of the resources available to you, and be confident in your ability to solve problems and find solutions…that’s what lawyering is!

We’re all in the business of retaining clients but there are times when a person is best left a non-client…better for both the lawyer and non-client. Because I strongly believe that there are situations when lawyers are unnecessary and often destructive. And taking on clients where you obtain a poor result and run up a client’s fees unnecessarily surely isn’t the sort of reputation building you need to really “Grow Your Practice.”

I’m constantly amazed and appalled in many of my domestic relations referral program appointed cases where I’m defending clients against indirect civil contempt. These cases are frequently post-judgment matters in divorce. More often than not an upfront review of the case file and discussions with my “new” client uncovers not only high levels of lawyer dissatisfaction but also tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fee judgments against these former clients. In other words not the sort of glowing client testimonials likely to bring those referrals and repeat business knocking on your door.

So when does a person REALLY need a lawyer?

It depends on the person and the definition of “need.” I suppose the continuum ranges from lawyer as replacement 3rd-party actor doing something a client could do herself but simply chooses not to (like using a landscaping service) to the most specialized of legal work where the intimate knowledge and experience of a lawyer is critical (think capital murder defense). And there’s nothing wrong with serving at either of those extremes…it’s honorable work to be your client’s trusted adviser on a variety of life’s complications. But oftentimes I think the honest assessment to a client that he should handle something himself bolsters your reputation (like parents arguing about visitation schedules or knowing that there’s not a legal solution to the potential client’s problem).

Here’s a guide I’ve developed (and heard many of these points made by judges) to answer the question, Does This Person REALLY Need a Lawyer, within the divorce field…maybe you can modify my list to polish your client selection discernment within your niche.

1.  No property and no children and short-term marriage=don’t REALLY need a lawyer. Unless a party simply wants to hire you like the landscaper, to avoid the hassle of a task and would prefer just paying someone to do this for them, no property/no children often should equal no lawyer.

2.  Property and/or children=REALLY Need a Lawyer. Simply way too many ways to blow money here like not knowing how to calculate “Net Income” for child support purposes if no one knows what they’re doing.

3. One party has a lawyer=the other party REALLY Needs a Lawyer. This is a recent add-on category for me that I think crosses the spectrum outside of my little family law world because if one party has a lawyer the pro se party is looking at potentially getting screwed BIG-TIME. I have several examples of this happening but a recent scenario that crossed my desk is the best…a couple both likely in their mid-50s divorces with several children but all the children are adults and beyond college age. The party with the lawyer talks the pro se litigant into having a $20,000ish judgment entered against the pro se litigant for a child support arrearage for a time period some 5-7 years prior when the kids lived with her. Judgment was to be paid out in installments. So, this guy is stuck with a $20k judgment because he didn’t have a lawyer…no way something like that happens with simply the most minimal trained opposing counsel.

Does this person REALLY need a lawyer? It’s likely one of the first issues you should be discussing at new client consultations. I think it’s an effective way to sort of play on the “scarcity principal”…I don’t take every little case that walks in the door. An important part of good client counseling.

Editor’s Note: I’ve posted parts of this article in dribs and drabs over the last year or so but wanted to post it in its entirety since I’m constantly sharing it with colleagues. It was originally published in the newsletter of the ISBA’s General Practice, Solo, and Small Firm section council (1/08)…but sadly is password protected online.

In April 2005 I made the jump to sole practitioner, leaving the security of law firm life to create my very own legal services business; I hung my shingle. It was an exhilarating decision filled with both excitement and trepidation as I started my first business. I had been a licensed attorney for not quite two-and-one-half years when I made the jump, with a small firm background in suburban Cook County. I started my practice in Chicago’s Loop and I practice primarily in the domestic relations, elder and real estate law fields.

I want to share what I’ve learned. Particularly in the current tough job market for new law school graduates, I expect that there may be many involuntary sole practitioners entering the practice of law. You can do it! These are some tips of what worked and what didn’t work for me.

1. Life Circumstances (primarily financial). My focus here is your financial stability as you start your solo practice. Ideally, you have a spouse or significant other who is working full-time in a steady, income-producing job and is providing health benefits. Also, if you’re right out of law school, perhaps you live with your parents for six months to one year to eliminate housing costs. Although I was married when I went solo, my wife wasn’t working at the time and it surely added to the financial pressures. Jay Foonberg in How to Start and Build a Law Practice suggests having at least one years worth of living expenses saved before starting a law practice (or having a spouse or significant other earning an equivalent amount).

2. How & Where to Office. These first two points are likely more important than the remaining eight combined; the amount of money and overall risks at stake are large and an error can be fatal. I started my solo practice in a “Space for Services” arrangement on State Street in Chicago. I had my office in a suite owned by an older attorney and my “rent” was 30 hours of legal work per month. He had a very full practice and I along with a number of younger attorneys assisted him. I strongly endorse this sort of set-up if you can find it. It kept my expenses down and allowed for good learning and mentoring experiences. Unfortunately, my landlord closed this office after my having been there only about six months. Following this office closure my firm was located in a traditional rent-paying location. However, starting October 1st of this year, I transitioned to a home office. In retrospect, once the “Space for Services” arrangement fell through I should not have rented office space. My experience has been that there’s very little need for a physical office and it wastes critical dollars. In my practice, with regular court appearances and real estate closings and 21st century technology, I’ve found that in-person meetings with clients are virtually non-existent. Also, our administrative staff is off site. That said I would strongly oppose having client meetings at your home. I anticipate using “temporary” office space at places like Regus (Regus.com) or My Office Suite (myofficesuite.com) for future client meetings when necessary.

3. When to go Solo. I went solo some two-and-a-half years after becoming a licensed attorney. I would advise against going solo right out of law school if you can avoid it. Let’s face it, although improving with increased amounts of clinical education, law school remains primarily a theoretical education. Most newly minted graduates don’t know how to practice law. Thus you must learn the practical skills of lawyering after law school. This is best done on an employer’s dime and under the supervision of an experienced practitioner. I think two questions should be asked before making the jump to solo practice: 1) Do you have a relatively high degree of expertise in two-three areas of practice so that you’re confident advising clients on your own? 2) Are there immediate client prospects (i.e., income sources) when you open your firm’s doors? Personally, when I hung my shingle I was working on some 20 client files as an Associate Attorney at my previous firm. Some five clients chose to follow me to my new firm which provided some initial income to ease the transition. Finally, I would strongly suggest you seek out good mentors both for practice specific matters and for the business of providing legal services. Both the Illinois and Chicago Bar Associations have created mentoring programs in recent years. I can’t imagine that most lawyers wouldn’t be honored to assist a less experienced lawyer learn the ropes.

4. Pre-Launch Tasks. Although your law firm will be constantly evolving as a business, I think there are certain tasks that must take place before opening your doors. It’s unlikely that your phone will be ringing off the hook your first day as a sole practitioner, however, you do want to hit the ground running and be ready to service clients. First, register an Internet domain name for your firm and preferably an additional domain name or two for practice specific blogs (see below). If you’re not on the Internet you’re invisible. And if you’re not optimized for search engines, primarily Google, you’re not much more visible. Also, you need a mailing address whether a physical office, a business “image” address or a simple post office box along with a telephone and fax number plus an e-mail address. All of the above are important because this information should be on your business card. Low tech business cards are still very effective for in-person marketing. You should also take out a malpractice insurance policy effective the day you open your doors. This is critical for personal liability protection but also because it’s going to be required for bar association referral services which you should also get signed up for up front. Also do a mass mailing to everyone you know with an introductory letter regarding your new law practice including several business cards. Finally, you should make sure that you have a more experienced attorney to consult as you deal with areas of uncertainty. This might be a friend, a bar association mentor or at a minimum membership on an attorney list serve such as the discussion groups offered through ISBA.

5. Naming your firm. I think there are three primary directions to consider in firm naming: founder/partner last name(s), geographic location or practice area(s). I obviously chose the last name option: The Olson Law Firm, LLC. I’m beginning to favor the use of a practice area in a firm’s name. Nearly everyone is using a name or names in a firm’s name. Take a walk around any town square of a county seat and you’ll see innumerable law offices. As a non-lawyer consumer, how would you tell the difference? I think the use of a practice area in a firm name will differentiate you. Or perhaps a combination such as The Family Law Offices of Peter R. Olson. I think the value of including a city’s name in your firm’s name would be particularly useful for search engine optimization for the consumer who types “Glenview lawyer” into Google, for example. In large cities I don’t think this would be effective. If you want to be real innovative and aggressive in opening up marketing channels, use more than one technique simultaneously. In other words, you might have a Website or a yellow page ad for both the John Doe Law Firm and then have a separate marketing stream for the Des Plaines real estate law office.

6. Business Entity choice. Let’s start with liability basics; unlike a non-legal business an attorney is restricted in his ability to limit liability. An attorney cannot limit his liability for liability relating to negligence in the practice of law. However, an attorney can limit his liability when it comes to contractual or employment-related matters. For sole practitioners, a Professional Corporation (P.C.) or Limited Liability Company (L.L.C.) are your likely business entity options. The Limited Liability Company, created in 1994 in Illinois, is a form of business entity that combines the limited liability of corporations with partnership treatment for federal income tax purposes (see 805 ILCS 180). Meanwhile, a Professional Corporation is a corporate structure for professionals such as lawyers, accountants or doctors. Illinois permits the operation of professional businesses in the corporate form under the Professional Service Corporation Act, 805 ILCS 10/1. Liability protection is identical under each entity, but the P.C. requires greater formality in terms of annual meetings and issuance of stock. As for costs, the P.C. requires an initial $150 filing fee to the Secretary of State and a $75 annual report fee. The L.L.C. costs $500 initially to file plus there’s a $250 annual report fee. I started my practice as an L.L.C. I don’t think that the formation of a business entity is critical for the new solo practitioner. Practically you may not have any employees and few long-term contractual obligations. That said, beyond issues of liability, I think there are perception advantages to using a business entity for your firm. I think there’s an advantage to have clients perceive that you’re running a serious business versus just a single lawyer toiling away by himself. Further, you as the firm’s founder must realize everyday that you’re running a serious and competitive legal services business.

7. Client Referrals. As mentioned above, one thing I did initially was to send a mass mailing to virtually everyone I knew with an announcement (business cards enclosed) that I was opening up a law practice. This is a “must do” and we still get calls from people who mention that they saved a business card and now they’re calling because they have a legal problem. I also sent a mailing to some 250-500 lawyers announcing the opening of my practice and offering to be available for court coverage and referrals. This reaped surprisingly few benefits.

Perhaps six months into our practice I started using LegalMatch.com as a referral source. This is a commercial, Internet-based, geographic-specific legal matching service. Clients enter their case information and I respond online. LegalMatch does generate a high volume of referrals and they do market themselves aggressively through the various Internet search engines. The downsides are referral quality and cost of the service. For this current year we paid $5,000. I am also a referral attorney of Pre-Paid Legal, Inc. The only thing I’d say is it’s free. I’ve gotten 3-5 referrals through it. As one of their referral attorneys you simply agree to give a slight price break to their referrals.

Bar association referral services give you great bang for your buck. I think these are critical because people who don’t have lawyers in their social networks call bar associations for referrals. Secondly these are typically only $50 to $75 annually. I’ve gotten good referrals from the Northwest Suburban Bar Association and the Illinois State Bar Association services.

Other professionals are another critical referral area. If I had to generalize, some of the above areas are good and useful for the person starting a firm and early in their career. These last two (clients and professionals) are referral sources more critical for my current and future planning and will potentially be the most lucrative referral sources. In the residential real estate area, you get most of your referrals from real estate agents. Other lawyers are also starting to be critical referrers. I think this takes time but once you have some good lawyers who know what you’re doing this may be the best referral source going. Get to know lawyers who practice in different legal fields and geographic areas and refer cases back and forth. Along this line, you should develop a nice “lawyer referral file” of your own because you’re often a referrer too.

Finally, I don’t think current and former clients are too helpful right up front because you either have few or no people in this category, but, over time this becomes the most important category. This is the category I consider most critical right now. After 2.5 years as a sole practitioner, we have a mailing list of 500 or so former clients. We have started a quarterly client newsletter to reach out to this group better. We also do the occasional “targeted” mailing of articles I write that address a specific area of law.

8. Billing & Collections. Since our inception, we’ve billed clients monthly and use QuickBooks Premier: Professional Services Edition for billing/accounting. It allows for hourly billing and you can provide written description for each entry. Bills are sent out religiously the first day of the month with a self-addressed stamped envelope enclosed (make it easy for clients to pay you). We do accept credit cards.

After some time our accounts receivables became higher than I liked and we’ve made changes. First, once a client hasn’t made a payment after the 30-day grace period, one of my assistants begins to make weekly calls to that person; these are non-threatening calls just reminding people that we haven’t seen their payment and asking when we can expect it. This little change has been surprisingly effective. We’ve also begun using an outside collection agency. The stages we go through with an unpaid bill are: start phone calls after 30 days without payment, collection letter stating that we’ll be sending to collections soon at the 60 day mark; and send to collection agency if there are no payments after 90 days (slightly different procedures if the case is in court presently). One other wrinkle we’ve added of late has been to include coupons in our monthly billing package. I’m still unsure about this. Does a coupon make us look too much like a fast food restaurant? I do know that multiple clients have come to us directly from our coupons. Lastly, if possible, wall yourself off from collections. Obviously I’m entering my billing time for legal work. But maybe it’s just me but I don’t like doing collections nor does it feel too comfortable for me on the one hand to be dealing with traumatic and personal legal issues with a person and then simultaneously calling them about the $500 they didn’t pay last month. Collecting is critical for your business. Create a policy that you and clients are aware of and follow it. Have non-lawyer staff follow-up on collections if at all possible! Looking toward the future, I am intrigued by the possibility of totally outsourcing billing to a company like TimeBillers, Inc. (www.timebillers.com).

9. Staffing. When I initially went solo I had no staff; I shared a receptionist answering my phone. Although I thought it necessary at the time, working without any administrative staff leads to lawyer unhappiness, is a cause of bad client service and poor communication (the primary cause of ARDC complaints) and is just bad business. No, I’m not suggesting you run out and hire some seasoned legal secretary for 40 hours per week with health benefits. What I am urging is for you to consider the use of virtual workers whether a legal assistant or law school student researcher on a part-time basis. With 21st century technology it’s simple to forward phone calls to an off-site employee and to share computer network resources over the Internet. As a business matter, without any support staff I’d guess a lawyer can spend only 20 percent – 25 percent of his time on billable legal work. The more non-billable work you can delegate to non-lawyer employees the more profitable you will become.

10. Blogging. Nothing has raised my individual profile more than blogging. For all you Luddites out there a blog (short for Web Log) is a frequently updated Web-based journal or diary, often hosted by a third party. For the majority of my Firm’s existence, I’ve published three blogs: Solo In Chicago, Closing Real Estate In Chicago, and The Illinois Family Lawyer. Their usefulness is wide-ranging but I think two uses are critical: marketing and the sense of “community” they provide. As a marketing tool, a blog allows you to exhibit your authority regarding legal subject matter through regular postings discussing legal matters. Further, regularly updated blogs will effectively enhance search engine rankings for both the blogs as well as your “static” firm Website. Using a free service such as Blogger.com is an easy way to get started. I am regularly interviewed in the legal press and have been profiled in multiple publications; none of this would have happened but for my presence in the blogsphere. Second, there is a wide-ranging and extremely active group of solo and small firm bloggers across the country. Without listing them all, let me say that nothing inspired me to hang my shingle more than these lawyer bloggers.

Let me be frank in closing, although I’ve attempted to be positive and encouraging in this article, it would dishonest of me to not state clearly that starting a solo law practice is tough, there will be some lean years and it’s not for everyone. It’s not something to do on a whim for six months to a year. I think you have to be committed to sticking it out for three to five years to really give it a fair shot. Jay Foonberg says that it took him five years before his cumulative earnings as a self-employed lawyer equaled what his cumulative earnings as an employee with a firm would have been. You need to be entrepreneurial. As a lawyer employee one might spend upwards of 75 percent of time in the practice of law. As a sole practitioner, marketing and business development come first; you need clients in order to actually be practicing law. You have to enjoy leadership and responsibility; the buck stops with you. But it’s rewarding, you’ll build something that’s yours. And there’s no failure. Several years in solo practice provides a breadth of experience not found in the typical Associate Attorney role. As Abraham Lincoln advised, your desire to succeed is one-half of the battle. Go for it!