Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

Here’s a piece from the NYTimes regarding free business advice from graduate schools of business. Take a look at a local business school if you’re looking for some consultations. Be like Kramer on Seinfeld…remember Kramerica Industries and his intern?? Good stuff!!

Take a look at GAL’s October 9, 2006 post regarding his blogging policy at his law firm:

One of the most amazing things to me when I launched my vertical blogs in a variety of niche content areas was that my total cost was $13.00 a month through TypePad for unlimited blogs. I designed my blogs a little different from most anyone else. I don’t have one blog where I talk about a variety of different things. I have blogs that are purely niche. Those blogs only talk about narrow issues within that niche. For instance, I have a domain name theft blog. It is a blog which deals exclusively with domain name theft, uniform domain name dispute resolution policy and domain name International Domain Name Arbitration. I have blogs in lots of other niche areas. But my blogs don’t bleed together. They are all independent and stand on their own. I use advanced templates within TypePad to create a standard “website” look for all of my blogs. When navigating between my niche areas, you have no idea you’re actually skipping between blogs. Because my blogs all link to each other, they increase the search engine results between them.

I do a tremendous amount of business off my blogs for $13.00 per month. Contrast the money I pay with TypePad to the money I pay for my Yellow Pages ad. I might get two or three clients a year off my Yellow Pages ad. I took a look the other day and I pay almost 100 times more for my Yellow Pages advertising and get 1/1000th the business.

That’s pretty facinating stuff I think. He’s far more sophisticated in his blogging theory than I am…although I think we are just about set to change-over to TypePad. The blogging versus Yellow Pages comparison is pretty staggering.

Here’s a piece from The National Law Journal regarding the ethics of blogging. Nothing new but another perspective…is it commericial speech or not? Perhaps in five years or so we’ll start to see some bar association ethics opinions on the topic…I’m not holding my breath.

There’s a short biographical post here from Lawcrossing.com regarding Attorney Warren Brown’s journey from D.C. practicing attorney to bakery/retaurant entrepreneur. My wife (and me) to a degree are Food Network junkies and Warren now has a program called Sugar Rush that’s pretty good. We’ve been to his bakery/restaurant in D.C.; pricey but good.

As an aside, Lawcrossing is a pretty good resource for attorney jobs, industry news and unique lawyer profiles…I have no affiliation with them but do get their weekly mailing called Lawcrossing newswire…but I digress…

But my moral of the story above about Warren is this, I think even beyond lawyering, it’s about your whole mindset changing and becoming entrepreneurial when you go solo or become an independent practitioner as The Greatest American Lawyer calls it. Don’t get me wrong, I had a high degree of personal pride in the legal work I was doing when employed by law firms previously, this can’t be compromised.

However, now that I’m in business on my own I’m very aggressively pursuing other business opportunities too:

• How can we make money blogging?
• Is a side real estate brokerage/investment/management company the better way to “play” the real estate industry versus mere legal fees?
• Should our law firm LLC buy an office to get some appreciation of real estate?
• Are there conference/publishing opportunities out there?

Surely some “employees” have the entrepreneurial bug too; but I do think it’s a lot easier to “settle” when you’re getting that paycheck every two weeks. Going solo/independent is very much about not settling and opening up opportunities!

Four quick tips from a recent CLE I attended regarding, 4 Reasons Clients Don’t Pay Bills!

1. They don’t have the money. What is your intake process and is it diligent enough? Are you saying NO to potential clients when appropriate?

2. Clients don’t realize they owe you. This is really about your billing system, proper review and follow-up. I have buddy in suburban Chicago at a small firm who says they don’t send out monthly bills…just astonishing. Depending on your staffing levels, I think a person in-house or contacted out has to be reminding clients about unpaid bills regularly. Just make this simple change in our collection procedures has greatly helped payment receipts. My person is contracted out and she just makes regular biweekly or so follow-up calls…it’s been a great help. Contact me if you need a referral.

3. Clients’ slow cash flow. See #2, often times the squeky wheel gets the most oil (or cash).

4. They don’t want to pay. This is often due to a bad result. There are many facets to consider on this point…should you sue, ect. Issue one might be managing expectations up front. You can usually tell the unrealistic clients at an initial meeting. Also, get an appropriate retainer.

Here’s the Sun-Times’ article on various bar association judicial rankings…some interesting findings. I’m always amazed at the time and effort that various bar associations make on these judicial evaluations. Do voters pay attention? What holds sway in judicial retention elections? Unless you’ve done something that has gotten major public attention you get retained, right? I mean even as a practicing attorney I know the judges in my little corners of domestic relations (primarily) and that’s it. I probably recognize five or so names on the ballot.

Is this the best way to staff our judicial branch?

Here’s a nice analysis about the acceptance of credit cards as a form of payment as a lawyer. It gives a real nice breakdown of the various fees and such that the credit card companies charge…a lot of the stuff I’d never heard before.

Does anyone really not accept credit cards these days? Occasionally I’ll hear this issue come up and am just dumbfounded when I hear some people actually debate whether or not to accept credit cards. I think there are ethical issues in some states; not Illinois. You have to make it as easy as possible to pay for services in business period!

If you think that trial lawyers constantly compete with each other for top cases, think again. The newly created Trial Lawyer Resource Center (TLRC) is a hot-off-the-presses blog that represents the collaborative efforts of 10 trial lawyers. Some of the collaborators, like David Swanner of South Carolina Trial Law Blog, John Day of Day on Torts, Mark Zamora of A Georgia Lawyer and Ron Miller of Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog may already be familiar names from the blogsphere. Here’s how the TLRC blog describes its purpose:

[this is a blog where a] number of the USA’s top trial attorneys join together with litigation experts to lend their expertise on topics that matter in your trial practice. Gain insight in case selection, work up, trial strategy, evidence, and post settlement issues. Contributors will regularly share their real life experiences and knowledge to help you represent injured consumers.

Spent a nice long weekend out in the Portland, OR area this past weekend. Boy that natural beauty out there and the temperate climate make it hard returning to the blandness of Chicago.

Here’s a piece from Law.com regarding law firm growth in the windy city. While many U.S. firms tackled expansion on the two coasts first, they’re now realizing the importance of having a presence in Chicago — to be closer to big national clients and potential customers in the Midwest region.

As for me, I’m moving to Oregon.