Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

 Powered by Max Banner Ads 

The phone ain’t ringin’…it’s Christmas Eve! So I decided to skim some articles I’d been wanting to get around to reading…the highlights:

1. Some news for those of you on the front lines of lawyering in the Circuit Court of Cook County. First, here’s the piece announcing the creation of a new domestic violence division within the Court.  My understanding is this will primarily impact the life of judges (and less that of me as private lawyer) over at 555 W. Harrison since previously the judges over there had been split between the criminal and domestic relations divisions.  As a citizen of Cook County I was a tad saddened to see this proposal regarding the closure of 4 suburban courthouses over the weekend to save $$$. Am I missing something or isn’t there an obvious compromise to close a couple versus the only choices being close 4 or none?

2. The Double-Edged Sword of Suing a Client. A nice analysis from our friend Ed Poll with an analytical process to undertake before suing a client…first, there’s the loss of future business/referrals; second, possible negative publicity; third, possible negative press/perception. Remember regarding these sorts of matters, client communication is key. And I must say I’ve frowned a bit of late on using collection agencies who can be as much of a pain in the butt for creditor or for debtor.

3. One Lawyer’s Definitive Guide to Video Marketing for Lawyers. It’s hard to think of reasons NOT to do this as any cost barriers to entering the camcorder/video market have virtually disappeared. I’m going to make a big push here in 2010.

4. How to Market Your Business with Facebook. Well, since I only use FB to criticize Notre Dame football, converse about golf, and for the occasional political rank this blog ain’t the place to learn about FB marketing. But I WILL have a Facebook Page up shortly! As a non-expert on all things “social networking” it sure seems like FB and Twitter are where the buzz is. A separate link on 21 small to mid-sized Chicago businesses using social media effectively.

5. Total Attorneys:  For-Profit Lawyer Referrals? I honestly had never heard of Total Attorneys until the Tribune ran this piece a couple weeks back (it is a Chicago-based company). It doesn’t sound that different than LegalMatch that I used a couple years back although the article makes it sound like Total Attorneys directs the prospect to a single lawyer whereas LegalMatch merely allowed me as one of 5-10 lawyers respond to a prospect’s fact pattern. Far from being a legal ethics expert, I would only ask why it’s okay for bar associations to have referral services but not private, for-profit companies? SOME of the bar referral services are fairly lame w/o that profit motive.

6. Far From Field, Lawyer’s Blog a Player in N.F.L. A little off topic but I liked this piece because I am more jock than lawyer & it does emphasize a point that I and likely many lawyers should open their eyes to which is something to the effect that social media – Internet business likely has much better business potential than merely providing traditional, bricks/mortar legal services. Florio, 44, an erstwhile Vikings fan living in Steelers country, began his blog in 2001 as a sideline to his law practice. Is 2010 the year your blog income exceeds your lawyer income?

7. And to close with some “light” reading…a primer on international child abduction. Because if you’re a domestic relations lawyer like yours truly one of these IS going to walk into the office sometime…likely sooner rather than later. It’s got something to do with the Hague Convention, no?

Career Advice: Find one of the most obscure, yet important government agencies to work for coming out of law school and then once you’ve gotten 5-10 years of experience at that entity flip sides and use those relationships and knowledge to build a great law practice representing people before that agency/commission. I stole that nugget from Wheaton attorney Irene Bahr who was part of my CLE panel this last Saturday. Note that she first worked for the Illinois State Liquor Commission and now she exclusively represents prominent companies before it as a sole practitioner.

Buy your office: Two of four panelists from Saturday owned their office spaces and when I asked them what their best decisions were as small firm attorneys buying their office space was the answer. I don’t see this too much although my first office was as part of a lawyer suite owned by a lawyer. Probably more of an investment/portfolio planning issue almost than an attorney matter.

33.33333333……%. Andrea Buford was an impressive member of our panel as well Saturday. She heads an 8-attorney practice that was founded in 2001. And the 1/3 number is her breakdown of time spent between marketing/business administration/substantive legal work…one-third for each. I think a lot of us don’t get up to the third for marketing and business admin.

Legal work from the do-it-yourself crowd. Saw this nugget from Mattoon attorney Janet Grove in the Illinois Bar Journal. She makes a standing offer that she will spend up to 30 minutes reviewing anyone’s will free of charge tapping into that group of people who have tried to build an estate plan without a lawyer. Is there a way for you to play this trend? There’s gotta be one for me…just in the Daley law library yesterday and there are always people at the front desk getting the forms to likely improperly handle a dissolution of marriage.

And finally a Thanksgiving moment, one of the great scenes from one of my favorite television programs…our President Josiah Barlett talks turkey:

Well a belated happy 4th of July and hope you didn’t get too wet at your local parade and fireworks display. It was cold and rainy in Chicago but the morning and the evening were fine so no great impact on my plans. Yet beyond celebrating the signing of our Declaration of Independence and John Cabot’s discovery of our nation, the 4th also serves as a handy half-way point for the year so I thought I’d gauge my progress…

2009 Business Goals & Plans

1.  Generate an average of $6,000 gross income per month and $72,000 for the year, specifically from lawyering revenue only.

Analysis: I’m going to be just beneath this goal at the halfway point of ’09. I was at just over $30k through May but I know that June’s income wasn’t great. I’m still very dissatisfied with the inconsistency of my income month-to-month. Simply for living and planning purposes I’d like to just churn-out month after month of $6k to $8k sort of months rather than some big months and then a $1,500 type month. Some things I’ve been doing to generate more business were to put in an application with the CBA’s Domestic Relations Referral Service, I’m set to attend a seminar in August to get on the Cook County Arbitrators list of panelists, and I joined a weekly LeTip group. Three marketing initiatives for the rest of ’09:  experiment with Google Adwords, Website redesign, and really reachout to other attorneys to make more professional referral relationships. If there’s one thing this blog has done is it has helped me meet many lawyers and I’m sure some of them need a family law referral source so I need to become that person.

Grade: B.

2. Become a Cook County Circuit Court Child’s Representative.

Analysis: I do have a very vibrant domestic relations practice involving many, many child custody matters and I do surely seek out continuing legal education seminars covering this subject. I really need to figure out if this or becoming a certified collaborative attorney is the better use of my time and resources. I need more information for 1-2 real seasoned family law practitioners.

Grade: C.

3. Complete a law review style article.

Analysis: Minimal progress. I want to get a couple scholarly articles under my belt because I really do enjoy writing but I’d also like to bolster my resume for law school teaching purposes.

Grade: F.

4. Create both law firm and blogging business plans.

Analysis: Very little progress on this front sad to say.

Grade: F.

5. Blogging consistency and attend Chicago Bloggers Meetup Group monthly.

Analysis: Primarily the issue here is simply viewing blogging as a very serious business endeavor that’s very much about of my future career and income generating plans. I’ve made around 90 postings here this year and about 70 over at ClosingChicagorealestate.com…not too shabby I’d say. Plus the traffic has really been solid as we’ve solidified things since the transfer over to WordPress. I’m just about halfway through Yaro Starak’s BlogMastermind program and expecting that to be a great guide as I work through more of the marketing portions of the program.

Grade: B.

6. Coaching and Mentoring and Getting Mentored.

Analysis: I’d like to have at least three mentors in my life:  one for lawyering, one for business consulting, & one for my Christian faith. Unfortunately I only have the lawyer mentor in place currently. The one I’m frustrated about is the business mentor/coach…I’m not sure where to turn on that front. There are a lot of business coaches out there but they cost $500 per hour. I may have to seek this out through a local group like Rotary or a Chamber of Commerce. I did get my first contact to act as a mentor through the ISBA’s MentorCenter so I was happy about that…I think that’s the ideal, having both sides of the mentor/mentee relationships in your life. And I am making some progress on the blog mentor program that I bought in early ’08 so that’s good.

Grade: C.

The Road Ahead…

Some fairly random things I’m thinking about beyond the above:

• Improve my Website and really make it a business generator and tie in with online ads…take advantage of decent traffic stemming from my blog profile on the Web.
• Create a firm overview publication with fee listing as part of the package that clients see prior to our initial meetings.
• Market hard to other lawyers I meet here to turn them into referral sources and vice versa.
• Consider a firm merger. I want to play bigger and take on bigger cases and I think great teamwork and synergy might be the answer…any takers?

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.

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

April 2009

Gross Income $4,136.67 YTD: $25,442.89

Business Expenses

Office supplies 54.14

Train ticket(s) 32.30

Malpractice insurance 167.40

Credit card processing fees 7.50

Web host 9.95

Mail/postage 103.80

Cell phone(s) 67.10

eFax 29.95

eVoice 29.95

Petty cash/lunches/gas 378.83

Computer/technology upgrades 390.87

Service organization dues 200.00

Northwest bar assn dues 165.00

Client reimbursement 132.30

Business Expense Total: $1,769.09 YTD: $4,369.59

April 2009, Net Income: $2,367.58 YTD: $21,073.30

Peter’s Commentary:  A very expensive month actually…biz expenses for April nearly equaled the previous three months combined. Mainly the costs were a couple large client marketing initiatives and some technology infrastructure stuff so nothing of a repeating monthly variety. But that’s still a scary number when I look back to only $653 for the month of February. Still not consistently reaching my $6,000 monthly gross income goal. I’m counting on an uptick in the real estate market and some of my marketing investment starting to payoff better pushing my gross income upwards.

My Firm is bringing in a new bookkeeper next week so that’s had me looking at some our Firm’s policies on some of the topics above. This was an interesting post on law firm billing from a couple years back. Here’s our policy in a nutshell:

–This is the first priority each month and should be completed between the last weekday of the month and the 7^th of the following month (the earlier the better depending on your schedule). Other than entering my billing/time as legal work is completed I really would like to not be involved with client billing/collections.

–Currently, our bills are dated the last day of the Month and should cover the time range from the first to the last day of each month. A credit card payment form and self-addressed stamped envelope should be included with each client bill. Also, I want to aggressively market our services with billing each month through including coupons, articles, pamphlets about other services, ect. I want to educate clients about the full breadth of our services and encourage them to pass on a pamphlet or article or coupon to their friends.

–Clients are expected to pay their bills in full each month. Some don’t and generally if there’s consistent payment of some amount that’s acceptable. Anyone who does not make a monthly payment should be called to follow-up on their payment after 30 days (the next month)…be flexible if you speak with them, can they pay half? Can they pay $100/$50? If possible get a credit card number immediately. At 60 days with no payment or no communication, I have two form letters one of which should be sent to client depending on whether it’s a former client or if it’s someone with an active court case (see ‘Forms’ – ‘Letters’ folder). Again, follow-up by telephone/e-mail at 60 days unpaid. Discuss with PRO if client gets to 90 days without any payments made.

Action points:

–Be creative with advertising ideas included with monthly billing.

–Find out how to do Website/e-mail credit card transactions.

–Suggest any/all improvements.

Don’t know if that’s helpful but knock on wood we haven’t had too much difficulty with client payment problems. If and when we do quite honestly invariably the fault lies with a too small retainer that was taken up front.

Don’t view “client billing” too narrowly…it’s a wonderful opportunity to communicate with your clients and market your firm broadly.

March 2009 YTD
Gross Income $13,554.22 $21,306.22

Business Expenses

Office supplies 253.75

Train ticket(s) 70.40

Malpractice insurance 87.88

Credit card processing fees 40.61

Web host 9.95

Mail/postage 58.30

Cell phone(s) 184.25

eFax 19.95

eVoice 29.95

Bank service charge 15.00

Office space 33.75

Petty cash/lunches/gas 147.52

Business Expense Total: $951.31 $2,600.50

March 2009, Net Income: $12,602.91 $18,705.72

Peter’s Commentary: Good month though a tad slanted due to finishing up a sizable case that had dragged on for many years with a big chunk of fees delayed due to the sale of a home. Expenses $300 over last month which is disturbing and something to keep an eye…mostly just some one time purchases of some necessary office furniture.

So a primary problem with under billing clients is obvious:  you lawyer are earning less money for your firm and your family. But that’s just one of many potential problems that often starts in moments of weakness when you think…aw, I kinda feel bad for this persons struggles and you give them a $$ break.

Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it! and did I mention:  Don’t do it!

Here’s another negative I’ve observed in yours truly in a case or two where I should not have under billed and I only ended up hurting myself.

It’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy and really a vicious circle where I’ve caused myself to under-perform and lower my standards as an attorney. It goes something like this…

You take on client X perhaps due to a healthy degree of human empathy due to client’s difficult circumstances, often both legal and financial. And perhaps you take a smaller retainer than you should and you charge a lower hourly rate than you should. I don’t think the lower hourly has to kill ya but the lower retainer is poor judgment. But it’s what I’ve seen happen next that’s the real killer. Because you want to “keep the bill down” for the poor client you sort of “under work” the case. And speaking about a time or two in my own practice I’m surely not saying I was at the level of ignoring the case or being at a level were the ARDC might come calling. But instead of say regular “A+” work I was doing “B” level work to keep the bill down. But, when the case doesn’t go just like the poor, sympathetic client wants it to go, he/she is just as unhappy as the well-heeled client whom you gave the A+ service too.

And the inevitable result is a client who you’ve under-billed and who is now unhappy and who likely will be under-paying and you’re unsatisfied because you didn’t do your best work and you’re now both underpaid and under-appreciated.

February 2009 YTD

Gross Income $4,940.29 $7,752

Business Expenses

Office supplies 39.99

Train ticket(s) 32.30

Malpractice insurance 83.70

Credit card processing fees 23.68

Web host 9.95

Mail/postage 68.03

Cell phone(s) 92.00

eFax 19.95

eVoice 54.95

Bank service charge 30.00

Office space 45.00

Marketing materials 70.51

Petty cash/lunches/gas 83.17

Business Expense Total: $653.23 $1,649.19

February 2009, Net Income: $4,287.06 $6,102.81

Peter’s Commentary: Sort of a ho-hum month but with momentum starting to build. Since February income is primarily January billing there’s a bit of a holiday period hangover/slowness and some seasonal slowness related to our real estate practice. Made some marketing investments that I expect to payoff in coming months.