Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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.

Take a read of Tom Kane’s post entitled,

Are You Too Timid to Ask Clients for Legal Work?

I wanted to share a marketing letter I sent out lately thinking others may face a similar problem that I do. Namely, it’s the problem of clients and/or referral sources having a too limited definition of your law practice subject areas. So I sent the below to some 25 excellent professional referral sources who had sent me primarily real estate matters over the years because obviously the real estate market is slow and these folks must get asked about other lawyer needs too, right?

I am writing in the hope that your 2009 is off to a wonderful start and to thank you for your support and referral business over the past several years. In lieu of the trying state of our current economy and the fledgling (but hopefully improving) condition of the real estate market, I wanted to make sure that you’re aware of the full nature of my and our Firm’s legal practice. Over the last eight years my practice has been focused exclusively on the following matters:

Divorce and Parentage matters. In situations involving married or unmarried parents I represent both parents and often the children involved in custody and visitation litigation, plus child support collection and property division when applicable. A niche specialty of mine is handling cases involving elderly parties and parties and/or children with disabilities. Cook County judges regularly appoint me to represent parties facing contempt of court where incarceration is often likely.

Elderly and Estate matters. Going back to my time working for the Southern Illinois University School of Law’s Elder Law Clinic, this has always been central to my practice. I regularly represent the estates of deceased individuals and the guardians of persons with disabilities in ushering their affairs through probate court. I also help individuals plan their estates often involving powers of attorney, living wills and trusts, and regular wills. Also, be aware of the Chicago Bar Association’s Senior Will Program (312-554-2000) where I and other attorneys regularly appear at senior centers throughout Chicagoland to provide basic estate planning services at very affordable rates (certain age and income requirements apply).

Landlord/Tenant and Association matters. I’ve worked with over 60 condominium, townhome, and homeowner’s associations in board counseling and property management since 2002. I also work with several large, residential landlords in prosecuting tenant evictions.

I hope I can be of service to you and your clients this year as you grow your business. Please drop me a note so I know exactly what you’re doing too and lets get together in-person soon!

The mailing has generated some new clients already and hopefully many, many more to come!

At least according to John Cesario, ARDC at today’s Working With Challenging Clients seminar @ CBA:

1.  Criminal;
2.  Domestic relations;
3.  Torts/PI;
4.  Real Estate.

Ah splendid, my 2 primary practice areas in the top 4. Real estate’s a bit of a head-scratcher…where’s the contentiousness in ho-hum transactional work?

That was music to my ears (not!) yesterday afternoon as I had just finished up a mildly successful and very involved court hearing that had spanned a couple of hours in a Cook County courtroom. A couple clients, I, and a judge had just gone through a rigorous hearing dealing with issues that are going to impact their and a child’s life for 15+ years and we finish up at maybe 415pm and that’s the statement I get from the court’s clerk. I guess Daley was right when he spoke of City employees (my example of course is a Cook County employee):

Daley said Wednesday city employees are “clock-watchers” who don’t think about customers. He contends workers in the private sector are going to make sure the customer is satisfied.

And I’m not going to generalize about all government employees, there are some excellent folks out there and even some judges clerks I could name off the top of my head who are very customer friendly. But come on!

And bridging to a related matter…

Isn’t the outright practice of rushed, scribbled, hand-written court orders one of the worst aspects of our justice system?

Yesterday afternoon being a good example where some 7-10 nuanced issues were ruled on…who wants a rushed, error-prone court order? I just addressed a couple of bare bones items yesterday and will come back with a final Order. But oftentimes you do have to enter your “final” Order in the crappy, rushed format.

So our system includes well-paid judges and lawyers spending time and money preparing for and filing extensive pleadings and doing intricate legal research that takes time and effort, ect. and then the results are often entered by way of rushed, scribbled court orders.

BUT, THE ORDER/JUDGMENT IS THE THING THAT REALLY MATTERS!

I don’t practice in the federal system much, I think they do things different/better there. Some of the collar counties at least are recording everything that’s said in the courtroom so you can pull that record after the fact if the order doesn’t match. In Cook you don’t have that and at best you’d be relying on a judge’s handwritten notes.

I have to waste a couple hours next week to bring a nunc pro tunc motion due exactly to the above…a rather involved ruling was issued and the handwritten order that got entered was wrong.

Or at least some of them seem that way don’t they? Do you have any like this and how do you handle them? I’m mostly just venting here…

We have a family law case right now that’s running over 9 months with essentially zero progress. And we’re defending someone so in essence the delay is good for our client but it’s still a tad annoying as an attorney.  The case has been in a loop of various attorneys withdrawing and then coming in and judges transferring the case back and forth and recusing themselves with the total sum equaling zero progress in 9 months. We are/will getting/get compensated but I still think these cases take a toll on lawyer psychology.

Thankfully I have a decent mix of cases/transactions from residential real estate transactions or a forcible entry and detainer case where there’s 30-45 days from start to finish up to a case that’s just about done after 6 years of litigation. So the above isn’t the norm for me.

I think I’d be miserable if I was one of these PI guys where all the cases take like 5 years…how do stay “up” for that long?

That was the subject of one of Chicago Laywer’s Ethics columns recently. I’ve never done this but the article covers some interesting cases and issues. It would be nice if the Rules of Professional Conduct were touched on a bit more. Here’s the general rule apparently:

Generally, when a lawyer takes a deed to a client’s property at the outset of the attorney-client relationship as part of the retainer agreement, and it is understood that the deed is only being held as a lien, and not intended as a conveyance of title, there is no violation of the rules.

I haven’t heard or seen of too many firms doing this but obviously there are cases on the issue that are cited in the article. Personally I’ve only had clients sign-off on agreed Judgment Liens that I’ve then recorded against property to secure a certain amount in legal fees.

The gist of the 4 cases cited seem to break on a) Are you holding the deed as a lien or is an actual conveyance intended; b) Do you take the deed as part of an initial retainer or is this a separate business transaction with a client later on. Generally holding a lien is fine and doing everything up front as part of a retainer agreement is the way to go. The trouble comes when issues about the lien/conveyance aren’t laid out in enough detail and when they’re transacted after the attorney-client relationship has been formed because then your conflict of interest issues arise.

I encountered the first instance in my entire career where a client would have been better off having filed a Counter Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, where his spouse initially filed for divorce. I used to think that the filing of Counter Petitions in the divorce setting was one of the bigger wastes of time going and just a bill padding technique used by certain firms. And oftentimes it is, but particularly in Cook County this can be a smart move.

Why?

Because a divorce case can be dismissed just like the $2,000 collection case and if you’ve gotten a lot of favorable rulings or if you have a judge who you think “likes” your case you probably don’t want to enable the other spouse to just dismiss the case and start-over in a different courthouse with a different judge who may NOT like your case quite as much. And this is pretty readily done in Cook County, you can file in one of the suburban courthouses and then dismiss and file at Daley. Or, you could likely dismiss your Daley case and re-file at Daley with little risk that you’d get stuck with the same judge. In less populated counties this likely isn’t as much of an issue because if you dismiss you’d probably be re-filing before the same judge regardless.

For example, I observed a situation (was involved in the case post-decree) where case is filed in suburban Cook and proceeds for some 6 months up to a pre-trial conference with judge who gives very favorable recommendation to W. But H was petitioner in case so he just dismisses the case and re-files a month later down at Daley. Well, the Daley case proceeds to trial and H gets a great result. Now W doesn’t feel too great…and this feeling could likely have been avoided if a Counter Petition had been filed.

Your failure to pay your annual ARDC registration fee that is? I kinda thought that was about right, but I read otherwise in the February ‘09 Illinois Bar Journal (pw protected or get the hardcopy or become an ISBA member).

Perhaps you’re thinking about how embarrassed you are that you haven’t paid your dues timely. Nobody has said anything to you yet, so maybe, you think, if you continue to ignore the problem, nobody will find out about it – and then you can save some bucks, too.

Bad idea, says Grogan. First of all, people will find out – and judges will be the first to know. SCR 756(g), Grogan notes, requires the ARDC Administrator to remove from the master roll the names of those lawyers who haven’t registered by February 1.

Though he says that his agency may allow lawyers even a few more days of grace beyond that date, sometime in February ARDC does notify the chief judges of each of Illinois’s judicial circuits of the names of all lawyers in their individual circuits whose names have been stricken for failure to register. The chief judges circulate those lists among the other judges. Lawyers on those lists who dare attempt to appear in court as counsel can anticipate some embarrassment as they are queried about whether they’ve yet complied with the rule and been reinstated, for those who have been removed from the master roll are not authorized to appear in court or hold themselves out as attorneys, Grogan notes.

Very informative, I’ll admit I think I’ve paid an annual registration fee a few days after the first of the year and didn’t think much of it. I guess no big deal but beware of February 1st. Likely not something you want to hear about coming from the bench with that new client standing beside you.

The Journal recently had one of their separate sections with the above title with the lead article listing/discussing 10 questions “to see if you have what it takes.” Here are the Journal’s 10 questions with a little commentary from SIC:

1. Are you willing and able to bear great financial risk?

–Roughly half of start-ups close, period. I didn’t say fail but yes the businesses close. What financial goals can/can’t you afford to sacrifice in order to fund your start-up?

2. Are you willing to sacrifice your lifestyle for potentially many years?

–I found and still find this one to be a bit of a challenge. I think this is why a lot barons of industry actually came from rather poor backgrounds…because they don’t mind the initial start-up sacrifice. Not to skip ahead to #3 too much but I surely had my spouse on board before starting my law practice but what do you do with the expectations of friends and extended family? Some of the vacations and expensive “going out” and rounds of golf need to be tempered for a few years, so be ready and able to say NO a lot for a few years.

3. Is your significant other on board?

–I think this goes without saying but to put on my family lawyer hat for a second, clearly financial issues are at the root of most divorces.

4. Do you like all aspects of running a business?

–I don’t but sometimes it’s necessary for me to do “things” and for the things I dislike most I hire people or outsource. I think what’s critical is enjoying the businesses primary function and viewing it as useful or important and then the ugly side of business is just sort of a necessary evil that is necessary in all forms of business. But, if you don’t like the primary function, then you’re talking about total drudgery.

5. Are you comfortable making decisions on the fly with no playbook?

–Important question but create a business plan and make sure you have several advisers/mentors you can call on when necessary.

6. What’s your track record of executing your ideas?

–Seems self-explanatory. Saw this good article today…”as long as you’re reading about what to do, you’re not doing what you need to do.”

7. How persuasive and well-spoken are you?

8. Do you have a concept you’re passionate about?

–I think there’s an important distinction to be made here and to acknowledge an error I made. When I left being an employee to become a legal services entrepreneur I think I made the change less based on what I was passionate about and more based on what I was not passionate about regarding my then current employer. And I think this held me back because once I’m out on my own it doesn’t matter how I felt while working at some past job, now I’ve got to be motivated to make this new gig work and at times that was lacking.

9. Are you a self-starter?

10. Do you have a business partner?

–Definitely something you should strive for based on this post and #4 above.