Project Solo

2010-08-14T18:41:00.000-07:00

Google Ad Sense

2006-12-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

I'll write a longer post soon, but I thought I would share with you the relative futility (thus far) of doing a Google Ad Word Campaign. On June 8th, 2006 I signed up to have my ad and a link to my web site displayed on Google when certain key phrases or words are entered (these are the ads that you see on the right side). I set a budget of $30 and selected about 15 different key words and/or phrases. Well, I haven't been back to the account manager until now (I was having some password issues) and I can now report the results. Over the last 5+ months, my ad displayed 2,123 times which generated 7 clicks to my web site (0.32% click through rate) and no clients. The total cost was $0.67. I think the main message here is that Google is ad-words is not going to generate much business for you, I am going to try and play around with my ad and key words and also run a second campaign for my corporate practice and see what the results are but don't expect big results. Here is a link to the Google Ad page to get started.

Estate Planning Web Site

2006-12-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

For all the solo estate planners out there that are early in the learning curve, I found this random site which looks like a good summary of stuff out there on the World Wide Web.

To Do List

2006-12-10T10:20:00.000-08:00

Not sure if this will work for me, but I am going to give a free service called tasktoy a try.

Free virus software and other computer stuff

2006-12-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

My lap-top had sort of a semi-crash recently. It wouldn't boot up which reminded me of just how dependent we are on our computers. I lost a full day and it could have been worse. I started researching lap top repair solutions on the web and ultimately got the name of a person that does tech support for another attorney to come to my office the same day I was having problems. Of course, when he did come the lap top started up fine but he did some work to it and made some recommendations. He also told me I needed a new lap top hard drive and reminded me of the importance of defraging the hard drive from time to time. His cost was $100 for the hour house call. Here are a few tips/lessons learned:

1. When you network with other solos, ask them who they use for computer support (even if you are pretty adept at computers you really need someone to fall back on when it gets complicated).

2. Keep your work backed up regularly (I still do not have a perfect solution for this, but I am getting close and will blog about it when I get a chance). I know this is pretty obvious but I still do not have a good automated "every-day" back up solutoin in place.

3. My tech guy recommended using this free (at least for home use) anti-virus program from Avast I had a copy of Norton running but that really really slows down your computer. I had not heard of Avast before based on my tech guy's recommendation and these reviews I am going to give it a try. It works on the honor system so when you feel like you have the cash pay for the office edition.

4. Defrag your hard drive from time to time.

Dispatches from a solo practice

2006-12-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

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.

PDF to Word

2006-11-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

If you have PDF forms that you want to convert to word, try PDF Converter from Nuance, I tried it and it works great (and I also tried some other programs that did not work as well). You can get a free 15 day trial of the prior version (v3.0; they are now selling v4.0) of the professional edition of the program here (I found this link via Google, I expect Nuance may not realize it is still active). The basic PDF conversion program (not the professional edition) goes for $50 (but with a quick Google search you should be able to find a $10 Nuance coupon).

2006-11-08T14:39:00.000-08:00

Advanced Google

Here is a little feature on Google that I have been using lately: the advanced searching feature that allows you to search by file type. Here is how it works: (1) go to Google; (2) click on the “advanced search” text to the right of the search box (takes you here); (3) look down the left column and you will see “file format” and then over to the right there is a drop down box and you can specify PDF; PowerPoint; Word etc. For my law practice this has been useful to find forms, presentations and marketing materials and also summaries of how the law works. In the case of marketing materials, while I don’t steel other peoples work, I do find it helpful to see how others have organized and/or described their particular area of law.

Check out there examples:

PowerPoints on new bankruptcy law

PDF on estate planning for married couples

Word document non-disclosure agreement

Estate Planning Questionnair in PDF

Yellow Pages Strategy

2006-11-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

I’ll try and stop blog free-loading. By that I mean, looking to other’s blogs as a source of motivation, inspiration and ideas but at the same time not doing anything on my own web site. I am going to try and spend the next few entries on barebones advice, the technical stuff.

Yellow pages strategy. When is your yellow pages deadline for submitting an ad? If you don’t know that you must go and find out even if you are not going to be doing yellow pages advertising I think you should be aware of the deadline as (at least in my area) you only get one chance to get your listing in the book per year. I didn’t know this when I started out, for some reason I though that they had rolling submission dates. If you haven’t taken a look through they yellow pages ads, I suggest you do. I found it interesting to see how people presented themselves, what combination of practice areas they listed etc. If you call up the yellow pages, a sales rep will probably come to your home or office and give you all the details, rates etc. So there is an easy “to-do”, give a call and set up a meeting with a yellow pages rep., it will take no more than an hour and you will know what your options are.

In my area, Verizon publishes several regional yellow-pages books. Because my office was located right on the line of two regions I initially decided to advertise in both books. I then had to decide whether to go with the general attorney section or a part of the book where they have a specialization directory. I went with the specialization directory under Elder Law attorneys, this is what other people had done that practice in this area and it seemed like the general directory was too big, this is also what the sales rep pushed me towards and it seemed like the right thing to do.

I ultimately went with a 2inch x 2inch advertisement, that listed my web site. Rather than list practice areas, I phrased the add to read something like “We offer help in answering these questions . . .” and then listed the kinds of questions I thought readers would have if they were looking to hire an attorney. I did not advertise free consolation (I was advised by a few attorneys that this can be a waste of time as, apparently, there are lots of people out there that use this as a free way to get legal advice that have not intention of paying or hiring an attorney); I did include a link to my web site (which I think is critical) and will advertise a free consultation on the web site at least for now. The cost for the one add in the one book was about $1500/year. As I mentioned, I was going to advertise in two books for a total cost of about $3000/year but, in a moment of financial panic, I cancelled the second 2x2 ad but was then talked into just an attorney name listing with web site in the specialization directory at a cost of about $500/year (total yellow pages spend of $2000). I recently called to try and cancel that attorney listing but was told it was too late.

I know yellow-pages adds do not have the best reputation, but given that I will only need one or two paying clients to make my money back it seemed like a reasonable investment. I did not find any interest in negotiating down the rates from the yellow-pages rep despite trying and canceling my initial ad placement. Also if you do have success with the yellow pages ad, next year don’t tell your ad rep that or she will use that as a way to get other attorney’s to advertise (that is what my rep did, saying how successful another attorney in the book had with the listing in the same practice area).

One more interesting thing, I didn’t realize this but you do not need to list your address in the yellow pages directory so if you are thinking of moving or do not want to limit yourself, leave it out and in its place put something like “serving the X, Y, & Z communities”

Word of Mouth

2006-10-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

I don’t want to let this blog languish, so I’ll try a short post.

First, the state of my practice is not where I would like it to be. I am finding getting corporate clients to be more challenging that I thought and, frankly, I am a little depressed over the lack of progress I have made (at least as measured by dollars of income earned and paid) so far. On the estate planning practice, I really have yet to kick the doors off that part of my strategy (not really sure if that is the right phrase but I like the way it sounds), in that I have been keeping that part of my practice in the garage but have not yet aggressively gone after it. That I plan to change soon. I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive about saying “I practice this area of law” or “I offer these services” when I haven’t actually done it! This is what I call a chicken-and-egg-issue. The great thing about being a solo, however, is that you can always start the next day with a fresh start. You have got to take the attitude of a marathon runner, keep at it, step by step, make forward progress each day, eye on the prize (and what a prize it is!)

Second, focus on word of mouth referrals. If you have a solo law business plan (perhaps it is all in your head which is fine), and there is a section of that business plan that covers how clients are going to find you I would focus exclusively on word of mouth referrals and do not expect to get much from advertising (Internet or otherwise). The cake is going to come from other lawyers, professionals that work with the same client base, and getting out and giving presentations in the area anything from the Internet will be icing. I met with a former classmate that started his own financial advisory services firm a few years ago and he said if he had it to do over again he would not have “wasted” so much time on the web site and putting together fancy marketing materials. . “its all a word of mouth game”.

Third, should you offer a free initial consultation? I am hearing more people say that this is not the way to go, it can be a waste of time etc. This includes one solo (now 2 years into her practice) and a more established small firm. The guy that had my office before me also warned against putting “free consultation” in your yellow pages ad because you can not turn it off (at least if you want to honor your advertising). I am going to continue to offer free consultation on my web site for now.

Fourth, I still have not purchased engraved stationary but am getting close. So far, I have ordered packages from All State Legal; Cleveland and Stuart F. Cooper. Cleveland is the new entry in this field, I liked the materials they sent and their approach and the fact that they give pricing on their web site and in their materials. We’ll see.

Other news, I cancelled HBO (just wasn’t worth it anymore with the quality of shows, although the Wire is still for my money one of the best shows on TV); I started watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (so far so good); I also started renting the British series MI5 for use on the treadmill.

A few random thoughts

2006-09-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have posted before on the panic, fear and manic mood swings that I have experienced in launching my solo career. I haven’t posted on that recently, but the thoughts definitely continue, in fact it is the hardest part of going solo and sometimes I wonder whether I have just substituted one kind of hell (a job I did not like . . umm that’s a big understatement) for a slightly lesser form of hell (say purgatory). The spend down of money is particularly unnerving even though it was all something I charted out before taking the leap. I don’t want this blog to be all about mental stress but that is definitely the hardest part to deal with. The way I try and get through those periods and keep going are (1) fall back on that year time table, now for me about 7 more months; (2) think about people I know and respect who have told me with absolute certainty that they know I can do this; and (3) look to other people that seem to have successful solo careers and know that if they can do it why can’t I?

A few more random tips:

Reverse engineer email address. Basquette asked how to reverse engineer an email address. I start by doing a Google search using “@ABCcompany.com” and see what comes up (e.g. “@IBM.com”). If you scroll down through the search results you will invariable find someone who has posted either in a press release, seminar directory or other publication their email, eventually if you see enough formats like john.smith@ABCcompany.com; jsmith@ABCcompany.com etc. You can assume that the person you are trying to contact has the email address with the same naming convention you.contact@ABCcompany.com. Before you send the email try sending a nonsense email like gjao123@ABCcompany.com and see if it gets bounced back to you; that way you will at least know if you had the wrong guess you will get the email back (I believe some corporate email systems do not bounce the bad email back). All that being said, there is still no guaranty as to whether the person got your email which is what I struggle with, particularly if a company uses multiple email formats. All of this also begs the question as to whether it may be better just to pick up the phone and cold call the person you are contacting. That may be, however, in my case I prefer to hit them up with an introductory email and then you always have the option of trying to get through on the phone.

Law school classmates. If you are sending out announcements, definitely contact your law school alum office and have them send or fax you a current list of your classmates’ addresses. This probably makes sense even for people that just graduated. My school had no problem doing that. Now, I wonder if I should have asked for addresses of people who graduated in the years around me. A question for you that are sending out announcements, did you also include a cover letter?

Email lists of former associates. I am part of three different email lists of people that I either went to school with or worked with. This is obviously a good forum to announce your practice but what I suggest is that you first contact the people who you know directly via individual emails (e.g. “Hi John, its been a while but I wanted to give you an update. . . . . how are things with you?”), this can be a little time consuming but this forces a response and allows you to connect on some level. After you have contacted the people you feel comfortable contacting then send out an email to the whole list making the announcements.

A few ways to save money or slow spending

2006-08-30T14:02:00.000-07:00

Here are a few random tips on either saving money or delaying expense until you have money coming in the door.

• Hold off on buying malpractice insurance until you start doing work; if you are gong to be doing work day 1 then by all means get the insurance in place. If you do not know when the clients will come, wait until you start doing the work. I think most places can have the coverage in place pretty quickly (like the day you call . . or they can delay coverage until the specific date you request).

• For local phone service, do not go with the bundled expensive package up-front (this is what I did before switching to a barebones metered service); wait for call volume to justify the volume of service. Do some research and see if there is an alternative for the big local provider (in my case its Verizon); I found some recommendations on a law news group for a vendor that was 50% the cost of Verizon which I am now switching too. When it comes to the phone number, however, defiantly call up your phone company and get them to give you lots of business number options; in my case they probably gave me a choice of 20 different numbers and I picked the one I liked best. I am not sure how that would work with the new low cost vendor, if they would have that kind of list or customer service.

• Pick a separate vendor for the long distance and intra-state long distance. I think Verizon was at about $.07/min, the new local provider I am switching to offered $0.05/min but I found this outfit that is offering $0.025 per minute with no monthly minimum so I am going with them.

• Hold off on purchasing the stationary until you really need it. You can do a pretty good job in Microsoft Word of preparing decent looking stationary to get you started (order the stationary from the various vendors so you can get design options). I still have not ordered high-end stationary, I am a fan of investing in that sort of thing and will do so soon, I just did not need to have it right from the start. Also, by waiting you can be sure what you want to call yourself; I have already switched from wanting to be called “[last name] Law Firm” to a more traditional “Law office of [name]”.

• Consider holding off on purchasing things like Quickbooks, practice management software, paper shredder until you have the volume of business to justify it (you don’t need many clients to justify it but it can cut down on the start up costs).

How I found my web site builder

2006-08-30T13:44:00.000-07:00

It seems just about everyone can recommend a good webmaster, friends, families, email news groups etc. I even considered becoming a web designer. (A few weeks post-9/11, when I had been laid off from my high-tech star-up and was becoming disillusioned with the business world, I knew I wanted to have my own small business but could not figure out what that would be. I considered custom furniture making (took some wood working classes), web design, coffee shop, fast food places etc. Yes, I had my law degree at that time and for some reason never considered going out as a solo . . I haven’t written much about that mental block . . I am not sure where it came from but I never ever considered going solo back then, now I certainly regret it, what better time to start a law practice than when no one will offer you a full time job. )

I had no idea how to pick a web designer, I actually had very specific ideas about how I wanted the pages to look. I knew what I wanted and really just needed someone to implement it. Also the cost seemed high, certainly (i.e. above $1,000).

I ended up turning to a site called www.elance.com where you can post a job and then solicit bids and proposals (they even have legal jobs posted but I have not pursued them, not sure how the out of state element works). There is no cost to posting a job on elance and no obligation to select a bidder, so it might be worth a try to see what kind of response you get. I posted a very basic description, saying I wanted a 5 page web site for a new law practice. I may have included a mock-up in Microsoft word (using the drawing feature) of what I wanted the general design to look like; if you have an existing site include a link to it. (Tip: when you post a bid not click on the box that basically says you only want premier bidders (aka higher priced bidders) to respond, I thought about doing this but did not and got plenty of good proposals). The job stays posted for a week although you do not have to wait that long to award the job to someone. In that week, I got 35+ different bids from all over the world, some even sent me a mock-up of the site (complete with my name etc., lots of judge’s gavels and scales of justice). The prices ranged from $150 to $3000 and came from all over the world. One problem I had was that it took forever for me to go through all of the proposals, review their portfolios etc. This led to a few weeks of decision paralysis on my part. You can pretty quickly eliminate bids that are either too high or that do not have enough of a track record of feedback. You can also eliminate bids from certain countries or based on their portfolios (which ultimately start to look the same). In my case, it turned out that one of the lowest priced bidders was also the one I liked the best and he was based in India. All payment is made through the elance service (you can do PayPal but based on a bad experience for another job I did through elance I would only use the elance system because it keeps it all under one roof, if there is a problem at least elance has a record of payment made). I sent my India bidder the word document that had the basic coloring and layout of how I wanted it to look and he prepared two web page samples for me to choose from one based on my design and one based on his, I told him I liked mine better so we went with that. I provided the photos (most of which I found on the web . . check out corbis) where needed and the text and he built the pages and put them on the web for me to review. I probably sent him 10 to 15 rounds of edits in all, he was great to work with, everything was done via email and attachments. Finally, he loaded for me and I paid him (you pay some money at the start of the engagement and then some percentage at each point during the work). The whole thing came to under $200 and I think the result looks great.

Where there any drawbacks to doing it this way? It can take some time, he would turn around edits in between 1 and 4 days so with multiple rounds of edits it took longer than I would have liked but some of that is my fault. Also, it was sometimes hard to communicate changes unless I provided a very detailed description of what I wanted (to explain where I wanted the copyright notice, I had to do a screen shot of the page and then float in an arrow and text box to show him the exact location). I also would not consider him a real design expert, he did a great job of coding the design I wanted but I would not rely on him for design expertise. Ultimately, I had a great experience; I referred some other business to him and always found him to be extremely professional and friendly to deal with.

Update & Lessons Learned Part 1

2006-08-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of solo practice is that (in the absence of any pending work that needs to get done your time is your own). Its now 10:35AM, I took a long weekend with the family at the beach and have spent the morning going through email etc. I have a 12:00PM lunch with a former business school classmate who is thinking of starting a company and wants some advice. So I have about an extra hour and thought, I would get back on the blog horse and put off the real legal work I have to do to the afternoon. (Thanks basquette for the encouragement . . . I need it!)

So I am now a little more than 4 months into this Project Solo and it has been a little over a month since my last post out here so I have lots to cover. These next few posts are going to be a mix of “lessons learned” and other random observations in no particular order or importance.

Grooving on Technology, Marketing etc. I’ll start with the bottom line here, put networking and getting clients at the top of your list ahead of stationary, computers, web sites, filing systems, practice management software, quickbooks etc. Do you have a networking strategy? Do you have a plan to get involved with other attorney groups? Do you have an address list to send announcements to? I know I secretly thought more business would come through the web site and, over time perhaps it will, but at the start I believe most of your clients are going to come from word-of-mouth referrals from family, friends, other lawyers you meet or other people in the business. Purchase an alumnae directory, contact non-lawyers who might work with your target client base, contact local lawyers who work in other (related?) practice areas and let them know you are out there. I only make this comment because I plead guilty to spending too much time building a web sites, buying office furniture, searching for the lowest priced computer, finding the best flat screen LCD monitor, searching Craigs list for a good deal on a Herman Miller office chair (yes I found one!) and not enough time focused on finding clients. I call this grooving on the technology [or insert your favorite topic you like here] because it is all too easy to spend time doing stuff you enjoy (e.g. Internet product research) and not the stuff that not many of us enjoy (e.g. networking or selling yourself). Not that all that other stuff is not important and can take an amazing amount of time but just make sure client development is getting is fair share of focus.

In other news, I may have my second corporate client which would yield about 1 day per week in recurring business. This would allow me to replace about 50% of my pre-solo corporate salary. I found an ad for a full-time corporate in-house attorney at a small business that fit my target profile (up to about 100 employees, no general counsel or other lawyer) so I sent off an email to the CFO that said basically “not interested in the full-time position but would you consider a part-time position while you looked for full-time” and included a link to my web site and bio. Within 2 hours of sending that email, I got a phone call from the CFO saying he was interested, they had considered part-time as an alternative to full-time etc., we scheduled a later time to talk in more detail which gave me a few days to think about what kind of rate to charge I have an hourly target rate of $200/hour but then drop it down if there is a commitment for a specific amount of work per month (right now its anywhere from 3 to 4 8 hour days per month). He seemed very positive and indicated he would hire me, I just needed to set up a time to meet with the CEO. I haven’t been able to do that but it sounds like this will happen. More details to come. I guess the lesson learned here is that you never know where the leads will come from. I have sent out many emails to former friends an colleagues letting people know what I am up, many have responded, many have not (which I find a little annoying). This particular lead was one item among many on my “to-do” list, it probably took about 45 minutes to an hour to look into the company, compose an email, reverse engineer the CFO’s email address etc. I could have easily overlooked this or not followed through as it seemed like a long shot. But I am glad I did, its another mental boost and validation of my model. That said, we haven’t signed an engagmetn letter yet and the CFO didn’t return my email today asking about good times to meet with the CEO so doubts are creeping in.

I am finishing this post up at the end of the day. I am off to a dinner with some local solo lawyers at a nearby restaurant.

First corporate client

2006-07-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

Time for a quick blog entry. I am still here, for whatever reason I have not found time to write although I find myself with all sorts of ideas, feelings, thoughts, advice etc. to write about. Highlights of the last month have included being told that I was no longer needed at my part-time corporate job with very little notice and in a way that was shall we say was amateurish and unprofessional, followed by a period of anger, panic, depression on my part, followed by them telling me a few days later “oh, wait a second we really do need you need you”. So I continue on part time. Just as a quick aside, when I first told my corporate employer about my plans to go solo I thought they might say no to the part-time option and I was not really that concerned. That said, now that I am doing this I am really happy to have that income coming in and am surprised at how cavalier I was about the possibility of staying on part time. Perhaps going solo full time would have allowed me to build the practice more quickly (I can see how that might be the case) but now that I am in it, the process of building a client base feels like it is going to take longer than I had anticipated (that is probably one of my biggest fears right now) so I am happy to have the work.

I do, however, finally have my first corporate client that is starting to give me work. This was the client I went and met with several weeks ago (actually it was in my last post). I had to scramble to find an engagement letter (got two forms from other attorneys); had to create a mock-up of letter head in word etc. Everything took time. I sent of the letter (PDF scan of signed letter sent via email) which was the first time I raised the subject of an hourly rate. I went back and forth in my mind on how much to quote, the going rate around here seems to be $200/hour but I quoted $180. I waited a week and heard nothing so I sent an email asking if they had any feedback on the proposal and they said they accepted and sent me back a signed engagement letter.

At this stage, the hourly rate is really immaterial as I am not going to charge them for all the hours I spend working for them. There is a lot of time that is just not fair to bill for. For example, they asked for a form non-disclosure agreement (aka NDA). Although I have several forms, have reviewed well over 100 of these etc. I spent a few hours cutting and pasting from various sources until I had a document that I liked. This will be my standard NDA for clients. How much will I bill them for this work? I think probably 15 or 30 minutes, that is probably about how much time it will take me to customize it for any future companies. On the elder law side of my practice I am doing the same thing for coming up with a standard form will, durable power of attorney, health care directive and trust. I am taking a bunch of forms including my own estate plan which was prepared by a reputable firm and crafting my own documents to use going forward.

I now have a backlog of tasks to do for this new client which will keep me busy for the next week or so (again, not all billable time). They have already asked me to do something that is outside my area of expertise and the thought did cross my mind to say “umm . . . I only do XYZ corporate work” but I held my tongue and think I can do a reasonably good job with a little library research and effective use of the Internet. You have to be willing to get outside your comfort zone (something I hate to do by the way!) if your going to do this solo thing.

Got to go, kids screaming for hamburgers.

Random acts of kindness

2006-06-23T14:48:00.000-07:00

Its Friday at 5:00pm, time to Blog. I have had some good days and bad days this week. Today was a pretty good day. I had a meeting with a potential client. This was a former work colleague that is now a managing director of a small start-up. I reached out to him about 6 weeks ago and he said he would keep me in mind and just this week invited me down to meet with him and his CEO. I put on the gabardine pants, polished shoes, pressed shirt, official looking leather briefcase and headed out to battle. I opted not to wear a suit or tie, I knew they wouldn’t be wearing one, it was too hot anyway so I skipped it (I think the best practice is to always error on the side of wearing a suit . . but I felt I could get away with it on this run). We had a good meeting, it sounds like I will get some work out of them (although not as much as I had hoped, it could develop into something more in the future). The whole thing was a nice affirmation that my strategy may work, that there is a need for this kind of service among start-ups out there. We didn’t discuss my billing rate, they didn’t ask and to volunteer it would have seemed a little presumptuous.

Lessons learned: Perhaps this is obvious but do not expect an immediate pay-off from networking contacts, you are really planting seeds some of which will come to bloom over time and some will not (did anyone catch Ari’s speech on Entorage about planting seeds all over town?). I have a tendency to wait until I am ready to do the work (e.g. open for business) before reaching out to people and I think the better practice is to get the word out there early and expect that it will not generate any leads for a while. Another lesson is that I need to work on my elevator pitch. It was a little rough, not as succinct as it could be. I also need to distinguish how I present my self as a solo lawyer to a client versus how I presented my self interviewing for a full time job. It occurs to me that they are different situations. On a job interview the hiring people tend to want to hear your story, what jobs you have had, where you went to school, why you made the career choices you did. In my case it’s a long and painful road to navigate, so the good news for me is that on a client interview you don’t need to go through your whole history, just hit the relevant skill areas, some examples of how you applied those skills etc. (I found myself giving a job-interview-style summary of my background this morning and that was a mistake). I would be curious to hear how other people handle this kind of thing, it may be different depending on the type of work and client you are meeting with.

After the meeting, I had some time to kill so I stopped by the continuing legal education bookstore. I asked how much one of the slimmer books was but it was way too high although the woman that worked there said they were going on sale in August. I started chatting with her she was complaining about computer problems at home and I told her a quick fix, she was nice and appreciative. I continued to browse for about 15 minutes, they also had a rack of older books that were marked down to $10. She then asked me which books I was interested in and I told her, a little wink, wink, nod, nod and the three books I wanted made their way to the discount rack (saving me about 90% of the total cost). That put me in a good mood, a little boost for a low income solo practitioner.

I then had an eye exam, at 40 the eyes are starting to go south (no glasses need up to now). And then to the office. I spent the afternoon reaching out to old contacts. I have stepped up that effort as my part-time job appears to be coming to an end (much to my surprise, more on that later). Feeling pretty good, after some depressed days earlier this week.

The War on Terror

2006-06-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

So here I am in the office on a Saturday afternoon. I started to come into the office on the weekends (last week I spent about 4 hours over two days) not because I have a flood of clients but rather because I am feeling guilty for not making more forward progress on the practice. Where does the time go? That is my constant refrain that has me coming into the office more frequently.

So here I am blogging on a Saturday, did I need to come into the office just for this? The answer is no, but now that I am here alone in the office I am feeling a little blue, a little depressed and I find typing out posts to be good for my mental so I thought I would bang out a post or two.

So let me share with my very few readers some recent thoughts on talking with other solos. Before I opened this office, I talked with several solos about their experiences and now, after making the leap, I have continued to network with other solos, have read the solosez email list and similar regional lists, gone out to dinner with some. So what lessons have I learned? Here are a few:

Two years. One of the few (and perhaps only) constant themes I have heard over and over is that it take about two years to get the practice going. One solo said that on average the solos that came through his law school to share their war stories made about $15K their first year. I have another friend who did about $30K his first year and then is on track to do about $85K this years (that’s gross). Over and over again, I heard 2 years although sometimes it was 1.5. years to 2 years, or if you can get to the two year mark you are going to make it. So for those of you that are doing some financial planning to make the solo path work, I would try and lay out a two year runway.

There are successes, strugglers and failures. I wish I could identify some best practices but the truth is that everyone seemed to have a little bit of a different story. Some focused on one area, slowly built up the practice and are now a success. Others appear to be struggling and unhappy. Other still have the emotional terror, panic attacks some five or more years into their practice. I guess what I take away from this is that you are not going to find the answer to the question: can I make it as a solo from talking to other solos. Without too much trouble, you can find examples of very happy successful solos out their and struggling grumpy solos, but you will not be able to find the answer to the question of which camp you will fall into.

Marketing Wizards . . .Not. I was very surprised at just how bad the quality of Internet marketing was among these solo lawyers. Most did not have web sites, and those that did they tended to be rather amateurish. Not sure what to make of this. Perhaps it’s a good thing that they don’t seem to need to spend a ton of time on things like web sites (I know that is the case in some situations, they have too busy a practice to worry about the colors, logo and font on their web sites). It also seemed to create an opportunity to set yourself apart from the others who are doing web marketing.

There is more out there than Internet solos. There is a lot more to the profession out there than the people who participate on Solosez and other Internet lists. As I noted above, lots of solos do not even have a web presence (I tried to find the web site of a solo that Myshingle.com who successfully argued a case before the US Supremem Court and guess what? He didn’t have one or at least it I couldn’t find it). I guess what I am trying to say is not to form your impressions or limit your networking to Internet listservs. There is a ton of talent out there that has never heard of myshingle.com etc.

Find a pathfinder solo. When I am feeling down, dejected, depressed . . when self doubt is taking hold, when my chest is tightening, when I wake up at 3 in the morning thinking what the hell am I doing? When I dread the question from friends an neighbors . . “how’s the practice going? Do you have any clients?” . . One of the things I think about is a solo friend who just like me, picked up a law book, read it, taught himself an area of the law, found a mentor, took some CLE classes, advertised, got his first client, got a second client, a third and a fourth. Now two years into it, is he a success? Not yet. He hasn’t crossed that threshold just yet, but he is damn close . . damn close. If I can get to where he is in two years, I know this will work. I guess, where I am at is the old saying . . if he can do it . . why the hell can’t I?

So there are some thoughts for a Saturday afternoon, and you know what? some of the dark mental clouds have lifted for now. I am going to go and work on my health care proxy form and then go home to my wife and kids.
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Big grin, but feeling stupid!

2006-06-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll just come out and say it . . I didn't realize that anyone was leaving me comments until I happened to click on the "Moderate comments" button in the blogger template. And, it turned out, there were several there waiting to be approved and published. So for those of you that have left comments over the past several weeks, sorry for the delay. Somehow I thought I would get email notification of comments which is the way another blog software package works for me. This is all somewhat comical because, although this site gets very few visitors I was wondering " . . hmmmm how come no one leaves comments?" I feel like I am talking to myself in an empty room

The mental battle

2006-06-02T11:09:00.000-07:00

Time certainly moves quickly. Last Friday I was thinking I should write a quick post since it has been a week since my last post and already another week has gone past. So a quick update, I continue to spend a lot of time studying the law, learning new areas, a little bit of networking but probably not enough, building my second web sites, getting my two other practice blogs up and running. But I am not actually practicing law or making any money or serving the needs of any clients. My other/old/part-time job continues to take up close to half of my time during the week.

So I could write about technical practice aspects (blogs, web site, technology), but instead I think I will try and comment on what I call the mental battle/war that wages in my head from day to day and hour to hour.

So there are about 8 hours in the working day (at least when I am in my law office) and at any point in time I find my emotions thoughts range from:

Panic -- What the hell am I doing? Am I crazy? What if the solo practice doesn’t work . . . shallow breathing? Will I be a failure? What do I do if this doesn’t work?

Self doubt – do I really have what it takes? Can I really do this? Do I have the knowledge and self confidence? Will clients come to me? Can I really teach myself the various aspects of the law I need to know about

Alone – This is all on my shoulders, no one else to blame or depend on.

Fear – Where are the clients going to come from? What if I don’t know the answers when I do have clients?

Exhilarated – I love being my own boss, setting my own course, making the decisions without being dependent on anyone, proving my self, no more ass kissing, I come and go when I want to.

Supremely confident – somewhere in me, I just know this is going to be a success, others have done it and they have succed. Sometimes I just feel so certain this will work.

Happy --- I am so damn happy I went to law school and have this unique option to open up my own practice.

Overwhelmed – it seems like there is just so much I do not know about the law, just getting through the books and researching takes forever.

Reading back this list, I see that there are more negative feelings than positive. That said the roller coaster mental ride is more evenly balanced between the positive and the negative, in fact I would say it is more like 66% positive feelings and the rest of the time negative. What I am surprised about is how quickly (minutes?) I can go from supreme confidence to panic. Writing this post has been calming, good therapy so to speak. More later . . . back to work.

A week in the life

2006-05-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

Lots of thoughts go through my mind as I sit here in my office at the end of another week late in the day on a Friday. Here is what my week looked like, yes I will bore you with all the mundane details of life as a part-time solo:

Monday – work at my old non-law job; these are long 10 hour days with another 1.5 to 2.0 hours tacked on for the commute. I am getting paid by the hour which is why I tend to stay as long as I can. I have also been in this sleep pattern for some time wehre I do not sleep well on Sunday nights, which makes me tired on Monday. After the kids are down, I watch 24 and then go to sleep. (For all you 24 fans out there, can’t wait to see Jack confront the president on Monday!).

Tuesday – I went to an CLE seminar on Trusts in the morning. It was pretty good, although perhaps a little advanced for where I am. I was glad I did it, there is something to be said for just getting out into the legal community. By taking the seminar I was eligible for a 30% discount from their books store. There are probably 10 different titles in the area of estate planning and elder care each costing about $150 to $200. There is lots of overlap so I wasn’t sure what to buy. I then headed over to the secretary of state’s office and took the notary public oath and paid the modest fee (its just amazing, all these things just take time, time). I am now officially a notary (my seal arrives next week). I then spent a dark rainy afternoon at the primary city law library reviewing in more detail the 10 different titles I mentioned above to figure out which ones I wanted to buy. The good news is that the quality of the books seems quite high. I made a list of the three I wanted to buy but it was too late to go back to the bookstore to buy them. Home, dinner, sleep.

Wednesday – another long day at the old job, home, tired, head cold coming on, and to bed (after watching Lost . . yes I have my short list of television shows that I like to watch).

Thursday – I met a former colleague for coffee. I guess you could call this a networking breakfast . . but not really. He started his own investment management business with another friend (2 people working out of their respective homes). He is a potential source of businesses, but it was really good just to talk to someone else that has gone out on his own to develop a business (he is 4 years into it). One common theme, is just how long it takes to get everything set up when you are the only one doing it. I then headed over to my law office (first time there in a week); head cold coming on strong. I spent most of the day working on content and layout for my second web site which will be for estate planning and elder care (I have already engaged my old web designer for this project and the site is coming along nicely). I also worked on a revised template for my blog, I have another designer on this project (I’ll have to do a post just on my whole web marketing and blogging approach). I am sounding like a broken record but this whole web site marketing thing takes forever. Home, dinner, started wathching the Showtime series Huff before our DVD player froze up, to bed, sick sore throat.

Friday – Another day in the office, still battling the head cold. Most of the day devoted to writing content for my estate planning web site. My blog template is almost complete (99% there) and the home page for my estate planning web site is 99% finalized. I took a long lunch break and went back to the CLE book store and purchased my books (3 books, a total of 6 volumes) for $350 after discounts. I am hoping the outflow of start-up type expenses is coming to an end. My head cold is dying. Now I am late to soccer practice.

More later.

[Tech] Web Site Traffic Measurement

2006-05-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post to recommend statcounter for measuring traffic to your web site. I have been trying it for a few weeks now and like the fact that you can use it to keep track of several web sites. You can see who is visiting your site, how long they are spending on it, what key words (if any!) the search engines are using to send traffic your way etc. Its also free and does not require you to put a banner or other market on your site. It also works with blogger and the other blog services you just need to cut and paste the code into the template in the correct space, see the instructions for more detail on this.

While you are at it you might as well get on the waiting list for Google Analytics, I put my name on a month or more ago but have not heard anything. Its gotten great reviews.

Advertising Strategy & Options

2006-05-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

i have been thinking alot about advertising options for the elder care and estate planning portion of my practice (yellow pages, craig's list, and Google key words are top of my list for investigation and testing. The good thing about craig's list is its free and, as for Google, I believe you only pay for visitors to your web site (the key is to have a web site that converts browswers into buyers). I need to do some more research on Google and have been trading voicemails with the yellow pages sales rep to find out just how expensive the yellow pages opition is.

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article on advertising options for small business. I have reproduced it below. Read More!

Where the Ad Dollars Go

As old media give way to new, small firms find more-productive ways to get their messages out

By SUZANNE VRANICA
May 6, 2006; Page R4
Wall Street Journal

The Internet is helping small businesses alter the way they sell themselves.

Some small-business owners are forsaking traditional advertising venues for online advertising -- including ads in search engines Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. and free listings in online classifieds sites like Craigslist. Others are using Internet firms like Spot Runner Inc., which help small businesses create affordable commercials and buy air time for those ads in local television markets -- something that's usually too costly for smaller firms.

"The Internet has really leveled the playing field for the little guys," says Jason Hacker, owner of Tech Plummer, a computer-repair company in McLean, Va. "The Internet and new technology helps me to get the word out." Mr. Hacker recently began doing some TV advertising with the help of Spot Runner.
Small companies spend about $30 billion annually on advertising, according to market-research firm Kelsey Group. And old advertising standbys -- local newspapers, community bulletins and the yellow pages -- will likely continue to receive a large chunk of those ad dollars. The yellow pages "remains the single largest vehicle for small businesses," says Greg Sterling, a principal at Sterling Market Intelligence, a research and consulting firm in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on online consumers.

Still, online companies like Spot Runner and small advertisers themselves see the potential for real growth for these newer ad venues -- especially since the Internet allows small companies to more easily reach a wider swath of consumers. Here's a look at where some of the small-business ad dollars are starting to shift:

LOCAL TV ADVERTISING

For many small businesses, marketing products on television has long been a pipe dream. "It's very expensive to do TV," says Bonnie Manjura, co-founder of Gilbert & Manjura, a small marketing firm in Longwood, Fla. "You can't just buy one TV ad and reach the market."

And small businesses that do buy air time on a local station usually can't afford to spend a lot on the production -- ending up with cheesy ads that run late at night.

But companies like Los Angeles-based Spot Runner are now making TV advertising more accessible. For less than $500, Spot Runner will customize one of several thousands of commercials it has created for specific industry segments. The advertiser can then book time in local TV markets through the Web site, and Spot Runner will deliver the commercial electronically to the TV broadcaster or cable company for insertion into the programming. Spot Runner takes a commission on the sale of the ad.

Barkinglot Inc., a Chicago pet-boarding service, ran a commercial in November in several local markets through Spot Runner. The ad featured a group of dogs talking about their time at Barkinglot. While the spot was a far cry from the elaborate commercials produced by marketing giants like PepsiCo Inc., it was still much better than the typical local ad fare that has lackluster graphics and a shakey camera feel.

Barkinglot paid $299 to create the ad and purchased $1,400 in ad time, which included having its ad run 144 times over a two-week period on Chicago cable systems. Barkinglot owner Brad Kriser says customer phone calls jumped by 20% during those two weeks.

To fund the move into TV, Mr. Kriser, who has a $40,000 annual marketing budget and has used it largely on local newspaper and yellow pages advertising, says he is cutting his newspaper advertising.

ONLINE SEARCH ADS

Gary Ettore, co-owner of Ettore Salon & Spa in Philadelphia, had always been fascinated by online advertising. But like many small-business owners, Mr. Ettore says he believed he needed to be a "computer whiz" or "computer programmer" to figure out how to do Internet advertising.

Then about a year ago, a sales representative from Yahoo's marketing group called Mr. Ettore about placing local search ads on the search engine. Both Yahoo and Google have been making a big push to woo local businesses by offering local search services, which can help surfers locate businesses in specific cities.

In a matter of days, Ettore executives were working with Yahoo representatives to come up with a local search ad -- a detailed Web page about the salon that the search ad would link to. The page has a description of the business, photos of the salon, a customer review section, a link for directions to the store and one to the company's own Web site. The monthly ad package, which also includes search ad listings that appear on Yahoo's home page, cost about $250 to $300 a month. Mr. Ettore subsequently bought a similar ad package on Google, which costs roughly the same.

Before Mr. Ettore put his ads on the two search engines, his Web site was getting about 20,000 hits a quarter. Today, he says his site gets on average 280,000 hits a quarter. More important, he says, about 80% of his new customers say they found the salon on the Internet.

The foray into online advertising has affected the salon's use of other ad venues. The company has eliminated its use of radio advertising and national magazine advertising. These old-media options don't bring in the business, says Mr. Ettore, adding that he now relies largely on search advertising and some local newspaper ads.

"My ad budget has been cut," he says. "I used to spend $60,000 to $70,000 a year on marketing. Now I only spend $20,000 to $30,000."

LISTINGS ON CRAIGSLIST

Over the past few years, many small businesses have turned to popular free online classified-ads sites such as Craigslist, a privately held company. While these sites are known for their personal and jobs classifieds, they also offer a listing of services that is increasingly being used by small businesses.

In February, the services section of Craigslist had 672,404 ads, up from 132,257 ads in February 2004.

About a year ago, Perrone Maintenance Corp., a carpet-cleaning business in Brooklyn, N.Y., was running weekly print ads in several local newspapers. "I was spending a lot of money," says Don Perrone, the company's owner.

In July, the company, which does about $100,000 in annual revenue, began posting an ad on Craigslist New York City. Mr. Perrone, who is also a New York City detective, posted an ad that contained several photos, including one of the cleaning machine and another of a living room displaying a clean carpet. The listing also contained the company's telephone number and a link to its Web site. Today, Mr. Perrone says, he gets about 90% of his business from Craigslist. "I stopped the newspaper ads after a week on Craigslist," he says, "because I was getting about 15 calls [a day] from Craigslist, and half of them led to steady service contracts."

Andrea Lawson Grey, a 47-year-old San Francisco resident, uses Craigslist to promote her painting and drywall company. Her ad reads: "Call for kitchen, baths, additions and decks, drywall and tile... woman-owned company." The listing also includes her phone number.

Ms. Grey relies solely on referrals and Craigslist to get business. Today, "Craigslist represents 75% of my business," she says. "It seems to give me enough contacts that I don't need to do anything else."

One caveat: Each listing lasts only one week. So businesses have to repost their ads every seven days.

Greatest American Blog

2006-05-09T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well, perhaps that’s an overstatement (but not too much). I just got done reading the latest round of posts over at the Greatest American Lawyer and I have to say both pre-jump and, now, post-jump GAL has been a great source of inspiration and advice. Striking out on your own can be both an exhilarating and lonely experience (at least in the pre-client phase I currently find myself in). And all the solo blogs out there (myshingle.com deserves a special mention as well!) a are a great source of “you-can-do-it” and “your-not-alone” sort of motivation.

I liked yesterday’s GAL post on vertical markets. Over the weekend and driving into work today (I even took a wrong turn as my head was off in the clouds on these issues) I was thinking about how best to use my time in terms of focus on the two areas of law I have decided to practice. If you remember, I have the “front-burner” focus which is business law for new ventures and the “back-burner” new practice area of elder care and estate planning.

My plan was that the front-burner practice would be an easier source of clients and income over the short term and was where I had the most experience. The back-burner was an area I thought held the promise of being an area that I could achieve both satisfaction and economic stability over the long term but about which I knew relatively little.

Now that I have gotten the business law web site and practice up and running and have started to network for clients I am beginning to question whether it will be that easy to find work and also realizing just how time consuming focusing on a single particular area can be (networking events, refreshing my memory on those areas of law, etc.). Would I be better off reversing strategy with the primary focus being on elder care and the back-burner focus being on the business law? What really motivates me? Am I just procrastinating? Can I move aggressively forward in both areas in the short term? The only decision I have made for now is to try and move aggressively in terms of the marketing of the elder care practice (set up separate web site, consider advertising options, etc.) and hope that I can gain the knowledge before the clients come knocking at the door.

The larger premise of all of this thinking is that if you pick an area of law, are smart and focused you can succeed. That was the vague conclusion I had come to over the weekend and it was nice to see some validation in GAL.

April progress

2006-05-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

So April came and went, I feel like I did not accomplish as much as I should have so I made a list:

Found office; signed lease
Moved into office
Found office furniture
Set up web site and email
Purchased and set up office equipment
Filled out content for business blog
Hired and then fired someone to give my blog a facelift
Started reviewing the finer points of software licensing
Sent in notary public application

That doesn’t seem like much. On the other hand, it was kind of a weird month and I am still doing the law practice part time.

Recommendation: Design Your Own Card.com

2006-04-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

I know most people seem to use VistaPrint to order business cards, but I had a really good experience with www.designyourowncard.com. They have a great interface and selection of fonts and papers. Play around with all of the buttons and dials on the layout page and you can see that you can pretty much set up any design you want. I think their prices are a little more than Vista but you get nice professional raised ink cards. I think shipped mine came close to $50 for 500 cards. I ordered on a Thursday afternoon and got the cards on a Monday. If you are thinking of using them, put in a request for their paper stock samples now, its hard to tell what they look like on the page. My only complaint was I couldn’t figure out how to save the design and return later to finalize, there is an option to save but but it didn’t seem to work for me, it may have been that I was using FireFox rather than Internet Explorer but who knows. Don’t be put off by the selection on the front page, just pick a card where you like the way the text is organized (ignore font and color) and then modify it on the next page. Check them out.

Microsoft Outlook . . sucks!

2006-04-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

I am exhausted. I have spent the better part of the past two days trying to get Microsoft Outlook to work with my personal mail account and my new solo law account. I want to get it so that my law email account is in the form of . . name@[mypracitcedomain].com. Outlook is so bloated and such a mess. I made repeated tries, searching help files on the web etc. It is still not working exactly right but at least I can send and receive email. The main problem was trying to figure out the best way to keep personal and work accounts separate. If I hadn’t invested this much time in it I might be tempted to give Thunderbird a try.

Diploma: Lost and Found

2006-04-28T13:19:00.000-07:00

Well I have been sitting in my new office, four bare white walls for the past three weeks (actually it has only been 8 working days . . I say that as a lame attempt to comfort myself for not making more progress since I started this!) so I think it is time to finally get my diplomas framed. Yes, another start-up cost.

The problem is, I have been vaguely aware that my law school and undergrad diplomas have been missing for several years, lost somewhere in my mother’s house. She is a pack rat so, even though she is the only person living there, the house is filled to the brim with . . . .stuff. So last night I went over there and spent over an hour going through stuff. I knew my law school diploma was large and in a tube when last seen (about 10 years ago) and my undergrad diploma was small (like 5 x 7inches) and had not been seen for about the same amount of time. I looked and looked, through my old room, filing cabinets, packed-full closets. I found the old holder for my undergrad diploma but it was empty (I am sure it was put in a “safe place” that no one can remember). I found my old collection of concert ticket stubs (perhaps my mother's not the only pack rat). The only people that are still performing are U2 and Elvis Costello, and REM . . for those of you that care other the other classic early 80s bands included, X, English Beat, Physhadelic Furs, Violent Fems, the Clash (my all time favorite), the Police, Peter Tosh, Talking Heads . . and yes . .I have to admit Devo). I also found a stack of old rejection letters from my first post-college job search that I saved, it really was a pretty thick stack, I forgot how many places I applied to.

No diplomas. I was on my way out the door when I realized I never looked in my brother’s room (now basically a large storage closet), I went up there, and in the back behind a chest of drawers were a bunch of document tubes and one of them was my law school diploma. I unrolled it and looked at it and remembered law school graduation. I had this involuntary sensation of . .hmmm . . I want to use the word pride but I am not sure that is correct, I just felt good about being a lawyer and feeling good about what I accomplished in law school. I felt that way when I returned to my old law school for the first time in several years. I hope this new path works for me and that the good feeling is not just because I have been out of the practice of law for a while soon to be replaced by cynicism.

Blogging, blogging etc

2006-04-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is the start of my third week in the new office (remember, I am only here three days a week, the other two are spent out at my old corporate job), the past two weeks have also been complicated by school vacation week and a two week vacation by our day care providers. I don’t have any clients yet but I also have not done any active marketing. Yes I do have a plan, I am a little behind where I wanted to be at this point. I can remember telling friends I wanted to make a “running start” when I opened up. By that I meant that on day one, I wanted the web site up, the announcement emails ready to go, business cards in hand etc. That didn’t happen, in fact I am just (as of today) going to finish off my law web site. It took a little longer than expected to get the office, computer etc. set up and I expect there is a little procrastination involved, obsessing about getting the web site exactly right before I started reaching out to old friends and colleagues.

I have also spent a lot of time getting what I’ll call my practice blog ready for “prime time”; I started this back in November/December and had a hard time keeping it up but I was able to post every now and then. In the past few weeks, I have been filling out the content. One of my favorite forms of procrastination is to see how many visitors the search engines are sending my way, right now I am averaging about 60 to 70 unique visitors a day and have the top ranking in Google for a few two word search terms (no idea why!). I need to give the practice blog a face lift (have hired someone to do that for me, they are behind schedule) and put a link to my practice web site, bio etc. For me the practice blog serves three purposes: (1) keeps me up to date on developments in my area of law; (2) establishes credibility with potential clients; and (3) provides a source of client leads. I have done absolutely nothing to publicize the practice blog yet so I will be curious to see what happens over time as I spread the word.

As others have said, if you are thinking about starting a solo law practice, why not get the blog up and running now, even if you are in law school or a year or more away from launching your practice it can be a fun way to feel that you are actually taking steps to go solo and keep up on your area(s) of the law etc. Here is an example of a law student's blog I found today that was referenced in an email that BNA sends out summarizing developments in Internet law. Stop, back up, think about that. For all you navel gazers out there that moan (myself included) . .”but I don’t know enough to practice law on my own”, we have a law student that is being referenced by a BNA email letter that probably being read by thousands of lawyers in the field. As you might have seen on myshingle.com, over at the Benefits Blog which is celebrating its third year anniversary, they are getting 81,000 visitors a month. That’s just amazing.

Yellow Pages + Web Site

2006-04-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

Here is an anecdote passed on by another solo attorney that started his practice fresh out of law school that I’ll share with you. He found that he got good results when he placed a yellow pages ad that listed his web site. He had a general practice (e.g. real estate, family law, bankruptcy, estate planning) and said he got about 2 call per week from the ad which converted into one client every two weeks. He recently started to wind down his practice to pursue a new position as a prosecutor and turned off his web site. He found that after the web site was taken off line the calls he got from his yellow pages ad stopped almost completely.

You Can't Do It

2006-04-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

I have fallen off my schedule, I had wanted to get my web site complete before now but am still working on the text and layout. I will post a longer note about how I went about creating a web site but the short version is I used the web site www.elance.com to advertise the project and found a web designer in India who is working with me. For the past two days I have gone to the library of a local college that has wireless Internet access to get some work done, I am not moving into my new offices until this Sunday morning.

For some reason, today was a bit of a weird day, I think I felt the pressure of building a practice a little more today than I have recently, doubts started to sneak in around the edges which has been a rare occurrence lately. Before I made the break with my old employer I had many sleepless nights but after I told them I was much more relaxed. Press on is what I say. A friend that lived in the dorm room next to mine had written "You Can Do It!" on a chalk board (what they used before white boards) inside his room, at the time I had thought it a bit corny but now I can see the value of simple reminders like that one (note to self, you can do it!). Its interesting (at least to me . . maybe not the nonexistent readers of this blog), however, in that when I imagine someone saying "You Can't Do It" to me, that gets me even more motivated.

Sweet Home Alabama

2006-04-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

Friday was it. My last full-time day of employment at my non-law job. It was a little weird in that I am going to be starting back there two days a week after taking this week off. We went out to lunch, nice things were said about my year or service to the company, I cleaned up my desk, sent out an email to people reminding them that I would be converting to part time and headed for the door around 4:00pm. As I pushed through the door into the warm spring sunny day I started to spontaneously hum then sing Lynyrd Skynard's song Free Bird. By spontaneous, I mean that I didn't really think about the song and then sing it, I just became aware that I was singing it, the sun was on my face, I felt so energized. As I got to my car, I pulled out my iPod to see if I had Free Bird loaded in there, I thought I did but it wasn't there. I did find Sweet Home Alabama, however, and thought oh well I haven't heard that song in a while and hit play as I pulled out the parking lot. What a great song (I'll leave it to others to sort out the politics of the song), I was listening to the lyrics which are really about coming home to a place you love. Not to get too sappy, but this move to solo law has a feel of coming home, I am returning to the practice of law after a 9 year break, a home coming of sorts, hopefully I am also going to find a home in solo practice that will quench the thirst for career satisfaction. Something I have not quite been able to find for the past 10+ years. I cranked up the volume, rolled down the windows, and listened to the song three or four times speeding down the highway.

Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet Home Alabama
Lord, I'm coming home to you

The Devil You Don't Know

2006-02-28T19:31:00.000-08:00

I am afflicted with what appears to be the typical fears and anxiety (and, at times, panic!) of leaving the comfort of a regular pay check for the unknown. I say typical because so many of the other pepople starting out describe the same feelings. There are lots of things to worry about, failure, money problems, being alone, being in over my head. One of the fears I really wonder is whether I will like practicing law? Remember, I already quit the law once because I thought I didn't like it. But that was working for a big firm. So as I think back on those days I wonder was it the big firm I didn't like or was it the actual pracitceof law? Sometimes it is hard to look inside your head and find the answers to these kinds of questions. I can remember vaguly (this was 8+ years ago) thinking that the job would be pretty good if it was 9 to 5 which suggests that perhaps that I did like the actual work it was just the way the law was practiced. I also know that at times when I have done a blend of legal and business work I have generally liked the legal parts of it. I remember once leaving the office and spending a day at the library drafting a partnership agreement, it was kind of fun. I also know I have enjoyed reading the local legal newspaper when I started subscribing a few months ago (something I never did while practicing law at a big firm). So maybe I actually like the law. There were, however, other times when I was more than happy that I had a general counsel or coporate counsel to fall back on, let them worry about all that stuff I thought as I focused on the business aspects of the various deals I worked on. So all of that leaves me wondering, will I like it or not. I think I will but I am not sure.

Telling the second manager

2006-02-25T18:21:00.000-08:00

I told my second manager this past Tuesday of my plans to open a solo law practice. I went to work after the holiday weekend determined to get this done and, after almost procrastinating for another day, I walked into his office at the end of the day and told him of my plans. What a difference a reaction makes. He was calm and supportive, said that probably half the people working at our company have thought of going into business for themselves. I didn’t really know what to expect, we talked for about 20 minutes, we talked generally about an end date. He was also supportive of my plans to work on a contract basis part time which was good news, although he said it was dependant on his manager’s approval. We agreed to tell the rest of the team tomorrow and he said he planned to open a posting for my replacement by the end of the day Wednesday. I left the office energized and relieved. In short order, the news was announced to the team at our staff meeting the next day and my manager’s manager pulled me aside to say they would be interested in the contract work if we can work through the details. All in all everyone was positive and friendly about it. For the rest of the week, I realized that for the first time in months I didn’t have to go to work with this secret plan, it was out in the open and that was a relief. This weekend I am enjoying a sense of relaxation I haven’t had for a very long time.

One other take away from the whole experience was just how replaceable/interchangeable/expendable we are in the corporate world, less than 24 hours after telling my manger they were already in the hunt for a replacement. It’s hard to justify devoting so much of your life to a position where you are so expendable.

Telling the manager

2006-02-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

Well the ball is starting to roll; this past Wednesday I told one of my two managers of my solo law plans. I wanted to type out my thoughts Wednesday night so they would be fresh but I was just too exhausted and drained. Instead I had a nice conversation/pep talk with my wife about what happened which was comforting and then we watched part of a French movie on the TV.

I had been trying to arrange a time to talk with this manager (who is my dotted line manager but the one who hired me) for a few days, one meeting I had scheduled got cancelled, I tried the walk-by-the-office approach but that didn't work, so finally I just sent a cryptic "can we meet" email. I stopped by her office at the agreed upon time, but she put me off for another hour. Anyway, finally we did meet and I told her what I was thinking. She immediately rejected the concept of turning my job into a part time position, but seemed grudgingly open to a part time or contract basis until they found a permanent replacement. I could tell she was not happy that I was making plans to leave after a year there. She had been instrumental in hiring me into what most people acknowledged was a position for which I was overqualified. Although nothing specific was said, I had the sense that during the 25 minutes we spoke I was no longer part of the team; mostly from subtle ques that would take too long to describe in this post. There were no real to-do's or decisions out of the meeting other than telling my other manager (who is really my direct manager; this is a matrix organization) and will make the call on if and how part time might work. I will do that next week as he is out on vacation this past week.

The whole experience left me depressed, although I am not sure what I was expecting going into it. Perhaps the conversation made the solo law plan more of a reality, more daunting, perhaps it was that for the third time in less than five years I find myself facing the prospect of starting over whether it be looking for a new job or, in this case, starting a new business. On the long drive home in the dark, I listened to that song Breath Me by Sia that they used in the last 15 minutes of the final episode of Six Feet Under. When I am in a melancholy mood I like to listen to melancholy music.

After that down turn, I have bounced back and took today as a vacation day and have been working on my web site. It’s starting to come together. More later.

Office Space

2006-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

There is something liberating about being able to choose the environment and location of where I am going to work. In a past job, I use to drive 50 minutes each way out to an office that was selected because it was within a 5 minute drive of the CEO's house. Good for him, not good for me.

On the way home from work today, I stopped off to look at an office that was advertised on Craig's List. It was a nice size office with large windows in a three story office building that had other small businesses (although no lawyers). The advertised rent was about $600 and its about a 10 minute drive from my house. I had a good feeling about the other people in the office that I met, seemed nice, easy going. They are looking for a month-to-month commitment which is fine with me. That said, there was no conference room to meet clients and the general appearance of the building would not make the best impression on clients. It may work as a place to work for the first few months but I don't think it is a long term home.

The ideal situation for me is an office in a nice suite of other solo or small firm lawyers. I found one great place with a nice office, receptionist, conference room, copy machine, law library etc. but the cost was way out of my range at $1500/month which includes someone to answer the phone. I am going to offer them $500/month for a temporary situation so that if they do find someone to pay the full amount they can kick me out on 30 days notice. I know they have been looking for a while so maybe they will take it.

I could work out of the house, but I am the type of person that really needs to get out of the house to work, even in the dorm I could never work in my room always going to the library. Something about keeping work and home life separate.

Sunday off site

2006-02-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well my wife and I had an off site on Sunday. I don't know what your life is like but by the time we get the kids down to bed on the weeknights we are too tired to do much talking about the finances, bills, career plans etc. I am inclined to hit the couch and watch 24 or surf the web or just set the coffee maker to come on in the morning and go to bed. We just could not find time to have a serious discussion about our finances and my plans to go solo.

So, on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, we got a babysitter and headed to a study room at the library of my old law school. We were there for about 2.5 hours going over the various Quicken reports trying to figure out how we spend so much money on a lifestyle that is just not that extravagant. We also talked about my plan to move to solo law, what would be at stake, risks etc. My wife is a great supporter and gave me the pep talk I needed. Sometime you just need to hear someone say "you can do it" over and over again. So the conclusion out of that was that we spend too much money, we will try and cut back and its time to rock and roll with Project Solo. My plan is to ask my current employer if I can go part time say 2 days a week, leaving 3 days to do the law practice. I hope to have this conversation in the coming week, we shall see.

The business plan

2006-01-25T18:50:00.000-08:00

So here is the basic outline of my solo law plan. The focus of the practice will be to act as a part time corporate council for venture backed start-ups that do not have an in-house legal department but need some day-to-day tactical legal help with strategic agreements, customer licenses, and general corporate maintenance type work. Typically these companies are anywhere from 10 people to 150 people. They can't justify a full time lawyer but could use someone for a few days a month. Ideally, 50 to 60% of the practice would be devoted to 4 or 5 companies that have committed to a few days a month and the remainder would be ad hoc one-off type projects. There are not many people doing this although I have found 4 or 5 in the area that I have talked with (more on that research later).

My understanding of the general billing rate is $175 to $200 an hour with some people charging more than $200. I plan on finding clients by working my various networks, former law school classmates (many of which are now partners or have in house positions), former colleagues (one of the benefits of working with two companies that went bust is that they are scattered at companies all over the place), and on and on, I find I can make a long list of people I can contact. Now whether those networks will yield a satisfying law practice is the great unanswered question.

Now that is Part 1 of the business plan, I also have a Ppart 2 which is to slowly build an estate planning and elder law practice (the "demographics are great" as a friend told me). Why this two part approach? Well I figure that it will be easier to start with what I know and then build out a practice (estate planning) which I think I will enjoy more over the long term but about which I have little experience. I could go on, but its late and I am tired so I'll leave it there.

Who am I? Why am I here?

2006-01-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

So here is my brief bio, more detail to be provided in later posts. I was born and raised on the east coast, I went to college at a Midwestern university and then returned home after college, graduating in the late 1980s. I spent the first 7 or 8 months after college trying to figure out what I wanted to do, interviewing for various business analysts type jobs, it was frustrating and my first introduction to resumes and "what are your strengths/weaknesses" types of questions.

I ended up working for a government funded research team for about four or five months and then landed a job doing economic analysis. I stayed there for about three years before going to law school full time. My first law school summer I worked at the public defender's office and my second summer I worked at a large firm and returned there full-time after graduation. I joined the corporate department at the firm (M&A, venture capital, bank financing type work) and stayed there for three years. I eventually decided that the business people at our corporate clients had the more interesting job and wanted to get out of law (now I think it was a case of the-grass-is-always-greener syndrome). I lefte the firm and have been on an extended tour of corporate America for the past several years (with a few periods of unemployment mixed in). I have worked for small, medium and, now, mega corporations primarily focusing on strategic partnerships and acquisitions. For the past year, I have been working for a Fortune 500 corporation but am actively making plans to return to the practice of law as a solo practitioner.

And of course, I can't forget the best part of my life, I married my college girlfriend and we have two wonderful children under the age of 6. Home life is great, its the professional life riddle I am still trying to solve at the threshold of age 40.

Considering Solo

2006-01-09T19:10:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to my blog, this is actually my second attempt to get this blog off the ground. I started with a post six month ago. I have now made commitment to spend at least ten minutes 5 times a week typing out my thoughts as I make the move to solo law (I have pretty much committed myself to make this move but I suppose until I actually do it there is always the possibility of backing out). I am a bundle of insecurities about this move but also very much excited about it.

Here is what I wrote (but never published back in June):

I am thinking about taking the plunge and going into business for myself as a solo lawyer. This is not something I plan on doing for a few months, perhaps not until the end of the year but I thought I would use this blog (assuming I can keep it up) as a sounding board, as a way to think out loud, keep me honest and explore my hopes, fears, expectations about pursuing this career path. In subsequent posts, I'll cover the what, why, when, how, of this thought process.

To any stray surfer who finds this corner of the web, please feel free to comment, critique or offer any insights you have on what I am thinking.

Its funny to read those words now, was I really thinking of doing this by year end 2005? Anyway, my plan now is to make the move March 1 More later (my 10 minutes is up!)

First test

2005-06-05T18:57:00.000-07:00

Hi, I will start this soon. Just testing for now