Dispatches from a solo practice

I feel like blogging, so here are a few updates:

Practice update: business is coming in but still at a slow pace, almost exclusively corporate work for small companies. Some of it through referrals and some of it through my web site. Still small stuff but enough to be encouraging; it really is a nice boost when someone calls you.

First estate planning client: I have my first arms-length estate planning client meeting (I really have not been able to devote enough time to this part of my practice) that is not a friends and family type of client next week. It is a referral from a financial planner I met with. Unfortunately, they want to have the meeting at their office. That is good and bad, I am not really pleased with my office (see below) and would be a little embarrassed to have the people come here. That said, I am slightly terrified to do this for the first time in front of financial planners who have probably sat through many of these types of meetings. I am going to spend the next week and weekend preparing for that meeting.

Blogging strategy: I continue to refine my blog strategy. My corporate blog is now getting about 50 to 60 unique visitors a day. That, however, was not translating into clicks to my practice/static web site. So I boosted the presence of my name and web site on the site and that yielded a few more clicks. I also shifted the focus from a nationally oriented site to one that was more exclusively focused on developments in my specific state. I have started another blog for the estate planning web site but that is really still a work in progress. Exchanging and adding links to/from other sites seems to be the biggest driver of traffic from the search engines (more links to you from other sites = higher search engine ranking). I think one question you need to ask yourself is whether you are trying to create a site that people will return to because they get a lot of useful information from the web site or enjoy reading it or is it more of a “key word catcher” that snags traffic from the search engines that ultimately turn into clients. I started out thinking about the former was the goal but now I think the latter should be the focus. I also find that it does take some time to build up traffic, so if you are thinking of going solo get the blog out there sooner rather than later, don’t worry about the formatting that can come later just start pumping the content (hopefully good content and content) out there and figure it out as you go along.

Insurance: I finally signed up for liability insurance; one lesson learned is to be cautious about the practice areas that you list on your web site that can impact the cost/coverage (I had listed trademark application which caused about a 30% to 40% jump in the premium even though I don’t expect to do that kind of work); I removed that word and re-applied with no problems. I’ll make this point again, don’t feel you need to sign up for insurance (unless required to by your state) right out of the starting gate you can put in place the coverage quickly when you feel like you are doing enough work to expose you to liability. As additional protection, I have been told to get an umbrella insurance policy on my house, car etc. that apparently can cover being sued for malpractice (I will need to investigate further).

Letterhead: I also finally purchased letter head, I bought it from Cleveland (www.celveland.com); they were very responsive in terms of producing proofs etc. (I also worked with Stuart F. Cooper but did not find them responsive). I went with engraved letterhead and envelopes (I tried printing my own envelopes on the laser printer but it looked bad). I am a big proponent of investing in things like a good web site, letter head, business cards etc. because I think presentation is important. Also, when you do buy the letterhead find out exactly what font they use and then purchase it from some place like (www.myfonts.com) so you can use the same font in marketing materials etc.

Office space: When I launched this solo practice I was committed to getting my own office space. I felt like I really needed a brake from my home and have always liked to keep home and work separate. So I looked at space and eventually found an office that I have sublet for a year from another attorney, it was a 14 minute drive from my home and in a good location relative to other business. It was also on the lower side of the price scale of the options I looked at (I pay $625/month plus utilities). That said, I think when the lease is up on April 1, I will be moving out. A few things I wish I had thought of: (a) the space is not wheelchair accessible; (b) the bathroom (common to other offices in the building) that clients use is not something I am happy with; not terrible but a little on the down market old world side; (c) in general the office is not something I am “proud of”; that is the best way I can think to explain this one, it is something I notice the moment I walked through the door for the first time but on the whole I ignored it given the other benefits of the space; I really noticed this when I had clients come to see me; (d) the utilities are higher than I expected; and (e) I am near too many attorneys that are big players in the estate planning and elder law field which becomes important when you start networking with people. I could go on but I’ll stop there, I am not sure what my next move will be in terms of office space but I’ll have to figure it out soon.

Time management: one of the major struggles I have is time management. I would bucket the major categories of work as follows: 1. Admin (computers, billing, filing, bank accounts; office machines; office supplies; liability insurance; printing letters; envelopes; postage etc.); 2. Marketing (networking; web sites; bogging; preparing client information sheets); 3. Learning substantive law (researching; library work; talking with other attorneys; building a set of standard forms; attending classes); 4. delivering legal services. The problem is, it is only the last one that brings in money but the other can each be close to a full time job. Mastering allocating time among these categories is very hard particularly at the start. I’ll give an example, I had a client come in to discuss forming a new business, I didn’t have a standard outline or way to guide the discussion (so there went multiple hours spend putting that together); they then asked for a letter summarizing what we had discussed (a reasonable request, it took me almost 2 days to put this letter together and send it out; you know one of these things I planned to get out on Monday but didn’t get it done until late Friday afternoon . . . remember I work at another part time job Tuesdays and Thursdays). The good thing is that I now have those things done for the next time but there went many hours/days that were not spent marketing and building the practice. I think I have two personal challenges, one I am a little bit of perfectionist when it comes to those things and I am reminded by this post that I think I probably suffer from ADD.

That's all for now.