Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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Well, there’s about 8 hours left in 2009 as I jot down a few thoughts here in the Central Standard time zone. Can I say that New Years Eve is a non-event for me…not sure why although it may have to do with the fact I’m more of an early morning person than a late night person so the concept of staying up past midnight to see fireworks or some lighted ball dropping isn’t quite the cat’s meow for me. But the one thing I do enjoy about the transition from year-to-year is the opportunity to reflect on the last year and plan ahead to the next year.

Here are 4 Final Thoughts for 2009 from one Solo (attorney) In Chicago…

Steady Income Sources are Nice and/or Cash Flow is King. I’d guess that like with me, this is a huge struggle for many solos. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that sole practitioners tend to be more dependent on individual clients than larger law firms. And if these individuals are anything like some of my clients they’re not always rolling-in-the-dough which equals paying their lawyers in dribs and drabs. It’s hard to lawyer like that and it’s hard to live with that. Can you find some steady sources of income to create an “income floor” that you can count on each month? Over the last 6 months or so the combination of my work as part of the Cook County Domestic Relations Division Referral Program (run through the domestic relations division of the Circuit Court of Cook County per rule 13.8b) and as an arbitrator through Cook County’s mandatory arbitration program have allowed me to create more a floor under my income. Not huge dollars but at least I have knowledge at the start of each month I can count on say $1,500 of income that isn’t dependent on a client’s payment that month. Might there be some court-appointed options that you can plug into? Or is there a way you can gain some business or entity clientele with more repeat business to supplement your individual clients?

Marketing/Selling is Key. Here’s a fact they don’t teach ya in law school:  The lawyers who make the most money aren’t the best legal practitioners rather the lawyers who make the most money are the best salespeople and marketers. This fact is of the utmost importance if you’re starting/building a law firm. I’m just about at a point where I’ve located the marketing sweet spot in terms of really getting the phone ringing regularly with new client inquiries. The big 3 marketing channels that work for me are:  1) Current/former clients (reached via personal meetings/contacts, annual mailing, and monthly Constant Contact e-mail newsletter); 2) Other professionals (reached in many ways like category #1 plus memberships in local Rotary and LeTip chapters); 3) Bar Association referral services. For me categories #1 & #2 are where the action is BIG TIME. Other areas I’m pondering are better Internet-based ads and targeting the evangelical Christian community which I’m active in better. I’d hope to maybe do an interview with some small firm attorneys and their Google AdWords experience. I see them up on this blog and they just seem so generic that I can’t imagine why/how they’d be effective plus I’ve heard of some bad experiences…I suppose it’s all about the correct keywords, no?

Under-Billing:  A Problem with Solutions. This is becoming less of a problem for me as my self-confidence grows, I see the quality of work I do vis-a-vis other attorneys (and vis-a-vis their billing rates), and I do better with regards to items 1 & 2 above…in other words these things are all interrelated. Lawyers under-bill because they might not think they’re very good lawyers but I’m starting to see I am a pretty good lawyer. And as I build some steady income sources and effectively open several effective marketing channels I’m not as worried about losing that 1 client if I quote too high of a fee because there will be others who will happily compensate me for the quality of work that I do.

Use Friendly But Aggressive Billing Communication. I like where I am right now with regards to our billing communication and follow-up. And I don’t say that theoretically, I say it meaning we’re getting paid well and our receivables are reasonably low. What’s working for us? It’s one non-lawyer’s job to mail our bills our each month and to follow-up with clients at specific time increments if there has not been payment. And this isn’t some a-hole collection agency (I’ve sworn off of them) rather it’s a friendly member of our staff making a reminder call. Full and accurate communication in your billing is key too…the description on your bills is as important as any of your in-court legal writing and probably more. I bet most clients are reading your bills more closely than a lot of judges are reading your pleadings. Eventually you must withdraw and bring your fee petition if there’s non-compliance. I haven’t crossed the sue-my-ex-clients bridge yet, BUT, if you’re in area like under the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act where you can bring a simple fee petition as a pleading like anything else in the case you’ve got to do it. Clients seem to act if you’ve got a judgment against them and a wage deduction’s comin’.

SEE YOU BACK HERE NEXT YEAR!

It’s not quite the Top 10 sports moments of the decade but everyone likes a good Top 10 list, right? So without further a due, I present to you Solo In Chicago’s Top 10 posts of 2009 (based on Web traffic, number of comments, and one person’s arbitrary opinion):

10. Do Ya Need a Calendar? Because it continues to amaze me the number of times that lawyers miss meetings, appointments, and court dates.

9. 5 ‘Must-Have’ Pieces of Lawyer Technology with The Connected Lawyer. Because as a small firm legal entrepreneur you’ve got to be able to practice anywhere and do everything the big firms do at a lot lower cost and technology makes that possible.

8. Do You Make These Mistakes? A couple of BIG issues I struggle with as a law firm leader.

7. Ah, A Well-Deserved Northwoods Vacation. Got a lot of traffic to this post, partly because ISBA’s Illinois Lawyer Now linked to it. And if you just get your “vacation plan/checklist” set once this isn’t hard to do properly again and again.

6. Firm Financials:  March 2009. Because we try to keep it real here at SIC…year-end-summary coming soon.

5. The Phone, The Phone is Ringing. Our 2nd most commented on post of the year from just a couple weeks back. I’m constantly amazed at some of the terrible telephone “solutions” used by small law firms. Just this morning I called a firm who had an automated voicemail stating they were closed from 12/24 to 1/4 and you couldn’t even leave a message.

4. Who Else Wants Referrals? Because NOTHING is more valuable to you as lawyer than a good, professional referral source. Recently just got my 3rd referral from a local real estate agent who himself was previously a referral from another financial planner colleague…”other professional” referral sources are golden.

3. Get Rid of Client Payment Problems Once & For All. It’s too early for me to evaluate our success relating to these 3 changes, but I’m very bullish on the changes and can’t think of a reason why most firms should not be following them.

2. Make Sure Your Referral Sources Know EVERYTHING You Do! This was a letter I sent to some of my referral sources in the midst of the real estate downturn early in ’09 to be sure they weren’t only thinking of me as a real estate attorney. I’m pretty sure something like this should be done every year so that those golden referral sources are able to refer all that business to you.

1. The Worst Decision for a Sole Practitioner? Answer:  Under-Billing. Alright, that is technically 2 posts but the point deserves double the emphasis. Nothing kills a promising law practice like under-valuing your services.

“A lawyer’s time and advice are his stock in trade.” A. Lincoln, Esquire. Don’t throw/give it away.

Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  Matthew 2:  11.

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?

The headline comes from a fascinating book I’ve been working through the last couple of months, Small Giants by Bo Burlingham. Published in 2005, it might be my favorite business read of the year thus far. It profiles 14 small businesses (a relative term…I’d only heard of one, Clif Bar, prior to reading the book) and the subtitle is, Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big. I’ve tried to really keep up on my outside business management reading this year because it’s just a fact, if you’re involved in managing a small law practice you have more in common with non-lawyer business owners than your typical lawyer/associates and in my opinion reading only within the legal media doesn’t give you the breadth of expertise you need.

The concept of “mojo” is introduced upfront…a sort of elusive quality that these companies have related to their passion for being. Clif Bar’s founder, Gary Erickson labeled it as “something about the brand, product, and way of being in the world that was different. I realized that mojo was an elusive quality and needed to be tended carefully.” I think of this as some connection between your business to some bigger goal/purpose beyond the narrow product or service you provide.

Another characteristic of the businesses profiled is the intimacy of connection with the communities in which they’re located…i.e. it’s hard to imagine them being located anywhere else. Some of our Midwest readership might be familiar with Zingerman’s deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a good example of a business with a very intimate relationship with its location. On one side this is reflected in the inherent style/culture of the company (think Bentonville, AR w/ Wal-Mart as an example) but it’s also the direct financial support of community organizations through the business/profits. I’m attracted to making this a BIG goal of mine. The broad framework might be connecting my firm with a nonprofit or two consistent with our values and possibly practice areas. For example, the bigger local passion might be eradicating domestic violence and that’s what your legal services business is about through your practice, direct financial support, volunteerism, board service, and depending how you feel about this aspect, this could be part of your marketing plan too. Particularly with a law firm, I think this can also add a bit to your “mojo” and general employee morale because lets face it, part of lawyerland is just dealing with unhappy people at life’s lower points but if you’re connected to something larger this might really give your firm culture a boost. Creating your own foundation might be another way to accomplish this purpose. In Chicago, I’ve been impressed with what I saw being done by real estate company Baird & Warner and their foundation when I had a closing recently down at its headquarters at 120 S. LaSalle.

A chapter is titled, A Culture of Intimacy, discusses mostly the intimate relationships between company and employees. A lot of this chapter is a discussion of the great fringe benefits that go to the employees of these firms from education reimbursements, health insurance, retirement benefits, and flexibility of schedules. The underlying premise being to remind people in unexpected ways how much the company cares about them. I aspire to this too…with all the people who are just miserable and unhappy in their jobs, wouldn’t it be nice to create a great environment for people to spend those 8 hours each day & to really be part of something larger than oneself?

A way to think about your business:  “An attempt…to reorder the world in some way.” Could you develop a “Direction Statement” for you firm like Reell Precision Manufacturing? Not the businessy-type document that a business or marketing plan should be but rather guiding principles discussing company values, management concepts, and ideals to guide everything that your firm is going to be about.

And you’ve got to get the money/profit right to do all these great things. A good quote from dressmaker Selima Stavola, “If they call up on the phone and ask me how much I charge, I say, you can’t afford me.” I can relate to this myself when focusing on the level of paranoid, thoroughness that I try to bring to the table as a lawyer…the documents must be right, that’s my work product. I don’t want to have any thoughts in the back of my mind asking, will I get paid for this level of attention to detail. Remember, a company without profit is dangerously close to not being around at all.

The book concludes with an inspiring chapter, The Art of Business, and profiles the founder of Inc. magazine, Bernard Goldhirsh and his quotation…

I kept thinking that the entrepreneur is like an artist, only business is the means of his expression. He creates a business from nothing, just a blank canvas. It’s amazing. Somebody goes into a garage, has nothing but an idea, and out of the garage comes a company, a living company. It’s so special what they do. They are a treasure.

That’s what you can do! You can reorder the world in a way that you value, having a great impact on the people at your firm and your clients. It doesn’t just have to be the drudgery of reviewing another contract…make it about something BIGGER. It’s your blank canvas.

These are the 14 companies profiled:

Anchor Brewing
CitiStorage
Clif Bar
ECCO
Hammerhead Productions
O.C. Tanner Co.
Reell Precision Manufacturing
Rhythm & Hues Studio
Righteous Babe Records
The Goltz Group
Union Square Hospitality Group
W.L. Butler Construction
Zingerman’s Community of Businesses

Interestingly that phrase from the kids show, Wonder Pets, came into my home because my wife cares for a 2-year-old little boy once-a-week and apparently he’s a big fan of the show and the jingle has caught on. Yet of course our focus here isn’t Saturday morning television but rather ‘Down-to-Earth advice for Legal Entrepreneurs.’

And how you handle your telephone number and telephone answering is critical. Along with the various ‘office options’ that exist these days, I’d say that the variety of ways to handle your phones was a classic example of something I didn’t know that I didn’t know when I started my Firm some 4+ years ago. And don’t underestimate the importance of the telephone in your law practice because at least in my experience, although the various forms of social networking and your general Internet presence is a key part of your ‘sales funnel,’ when it comes times for client to retain attorney that process starts with a telephone call.

Consider 5 of the good/bad/ugly ‘telephone solutions’ that I’ve used and observed in my practice…

1.  The traditional receptionist(s)/legal assistant(s) answers all incoming calls. Likely your best option if you have the personnel to do this. It’s great because this person can serve as a gatekeeper to help you as lawyer be more productive and your receptionist should be able to simply handle many of the purely logistical calls without your needing to give those calls one iota of attention. Plus with the right personality this person or people can be a great sales force for you.

2.  An automated, Internet receptionist. I’ve used this option over the last year or so with this provider, Onebox.com (part of the same company that created eFax.com) at a cost of some $30 per month. I know there was at least one other major player I was considering when I set this up but I can’t recall that alternative off hand. I’ve always used some combination of part-time and contract staff so option #1 has never been viable for me. Here, callers hear an automated greeting that I created and a caller is given a couple different options, one of which is to reach me (Call our office @ 312-629-9900 if you want to hear an example). Then that call to our office number rings to whereever I want it to which currently is my cell phone. My opinion is that this presentation sounds very professional, callers expect companies to use some sort of filtered, automated answering system these days up front, and they still can get to me with only the press of a button.

3.  Cell/Office phone self-answered by you, the lawyer. I generally find this tacky and not productive and wouldn’t recommend it. If you’re answering your telephone, with the rare exceptions, you’re not earning income which is a no, no. Plus I think there’s a bit of a negative perception if “my lawyer answers his own telephone.” And if you do this via a cell phone I definately think there’s a TOO CHEAP factor that hurts you.

4.  Your telephone straight to voicemail. I’m not sure if #3 or #4 is worse and I see a lot of small law firms using some combination of the 2. I don’t think this option has to be that bad IF the voicemail message is friendly, descriptive, and sales-oriented and that messages get returned relatively quickly. Personally, I’ve been less suprised that many firms I call use this option than I’ve been with some of the terrible and almost anonymous messages I hear at lawyer offices.

5.  Virtual office package answering/telephone answering services. What I mean here is where a human being is the first answer of the call but it’s a person with no relationship/knowledge of your firm. So here you’re attempting to make your firm seem professional and larger than it is. Often this is coupled with the virtual office provider’s willingness to forward calls immediately to another location or your cell phone.  This set-up is useful for ‘business image’ building. The only thing I don’t like about it is that this is where many of the virtual office providers like a Regus for example nickle-and-dime you. Any time I got my calls forwarded to my cell phone I was charged for that forward maybe $1 per call which would add $100ish to my tab each month.

Anybody doing anything better/different??

Editor’s Update: I wanted to give a little better “back story” on how/why I got to where I am sitting in option #2 above. So back when I founded my firm in a space-for-services arrangement at 120 S. State Street I bought our current, 312-629-9900, telephone number straight from the phone company and our phone’s were answered by a shared receptionist. Then some 6 months later my firm was relocated to our own office and we ported the phone number as part of that move. At that location for some 3 years we were in option #5. As I stated above, the one aspect of #5 I didn’t like was we were officed in a sort of executive suite where our office lease included receptionists but you have to watch the add-on expenses like forwarded phone calls when I was out of the office and needed calls forwarded. Finally, for the last year or so I’ve been in option #2. For us it’s an effective way to allow for the decentralized nature of 2-3 staff people who don’t work in a single location that costs a reasonable, flat-fee each month.

Not to get too Freudian on you all, but, sometimes one of the upsides to blogging and I suppose a lot of writing in general is that it encourages a degree of self-analysis and introspection. This last post (and perhaps some quiet time last week in the UP) and specifically the notion of a law practice broken down into thirds has got me thinking about two sort of macro-level viewpoints that often hold me back from greater success as a small law firm manager. And I’m guessing I’m not alone.

First is the pull or conflict between the “worker bee” mindset versus the business owner/rainmaker/CEO mindset. I’m nearing the 5 year mark of my own firm’s existence and I have not yet fully conquered the “worker bee” syndrome. Meaning I still have a twinge of guilt when I’m NOT getting very specific, currently profitable, legal work done. And what results is that the 1/3-1/3-1/3 model gets out-of-whack big time because I feel like I must be spending more time on the substantive legal work “third.” Inevitably what happens is my breakdown becomes something like 70% substantive legal and probably 15% each for marketing and business administration. Thus I’m too focused on present legal work versus creating future legal work & creating a better legal services business in the future. This is a big deal. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with the “worker bee” syndrome in general but if you know that’s kind of who you are then your/my place might be as another firm’s associate being the ultimate 2200 billable hour worker bee…ouch, that stings.

Second, and less specific to lawyerland, is the old ACTIVITY versus ACCOMPLISHMENT struggle given emphasis by the late Peter Drucker. This is rather self-explanatory but can be particularly challenging for the small firm attorney depending on your staff constraints. I currently utilize one, part-time legal assistant so on the days that she’s working most of my “activities” get shifted off of my plate…scheduling, logistics, reminder telephone calls, buying office supplies, simple banking, mail sorting, etc., etc. I’d include checking e-mail more than say 2-3 times a day in the category of “activity” w/o any substantive accomplishment too. And lets be clear, what I’m labeling as activities are different than sort of utter time wasting procrastination. The things I list above are things that must be done, however, they are not profitable accomplishments that are putting dollars in my pocket…they’re sort of tangential. A typical error would be me putting off spending several hours on drafting some critical legal document for a client and instead spending that time doing non-substantive activity-like busy work. Some easy fixes are proper delegation of work to staff and limiting your e-mail usage each day. The bigger mindset change is developing the mental discpline to differentiate between the important and the urgent. Or like former (future?) Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz used to preach using the W.I.N. acronym:

What’s
Important
Now

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:

and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty.
~~William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

Just a quick nugget of America’s history about what we consider the original Thanksgiving harvest celebration back in 1621 on our eastern shore.

As I work feverishly to sort of close-up shop these next few days prior to a little upper-Midwestern travel next week I have much to be thankful for in the legal realm. Despite some of the general economic headwinds, I’m expecting to close-out our Firm’s best financial year yet (sorry for not keeping up with the monthly financials better but I’ll surely do a full-year look-back). SIC’s ramping up nicely seeing nearly 60,000 site hits and more than 11,000 site visitors just last month. And I expect that we’ll continue to really ramp-up our place as the ‘Go-To’ resource for entrepreneurial attorneys as I get some outside technical assitance and add another writer or two. But primarily I’m thankful for the people I meet as an attorney and blogger from my clientele to the hundreds of lawyers I meet and hear from on a regular basis.

And speaking of this spirit of Thanksgiving…

I’ve got my first little free give-a-way to offer compliments of UPrinting.com. The prize offering is for: 50, 7*5″ (folded to 3.5*5) custom thank you cards with plain envelopes (see here, here, and here).

What’s the contest? Leave your comment to this post stating some legal advice or mentoring story related to your law practice that you’re most thankful for. The deadline is 11/29/09. For example, I’m very thankful that the first attorney I worked for, Gordon Cochrane, an excellent sole practitioner was an absolute sticker for thoroughness and being detail oriented. It got a bit grating at the time but looking back I appreciate the fact that I’m not sloppy. Only 1 winner and I’m the judge.

How ’bout you?

And for a quick bow to the FTC, I am receiving 50 thank you cards from UPrinting.com for hosting this contest.

How?

Attend Ms. JD’s 3rd Annual Conference:  Avenues to Advancement…this Friday and Saturday (11/20-21) at Northwestern’s School of Law!

Okay, yes I am giving my own panel a bit of a plug here, Paths to Independence: Starting & Building Your Solo Practice with Irene Bahr, Andrea Buford, Janaan Hashim, and Michelle Rozovics. But the whole event is chalked full of real diverse sorts of career seminars…big firm, small firm, avenues to government and corporate legal departments…plus some real nuts-and-bolts tips on networking, summer jobs, self-promotion, and even avoiding the mommy-track (OK, I’m not too worried about that last one).

But seriously, only $50 for law students…what do ya have to lose if you’re in greater Chicagoland ($150 for practicing lawyers).

Come on and say hi.