Have you Fallen Into the Solo Attorney Trap?
Many solo attorneys become victim of what I have begun to call the “solo attorney trap”.
This means they get caught up in ONLY speaking with and learning from other attorneys when it comes to building their law firm.
This is so common that when someone with a different perspective comes along, the new guy, with the fresh ideas, is often considered an oddball.
After all, how can HE understand what YOU are going through? He is not an attorney.
Don’t get me wrong, there is value in participating in a peer advisory group. Having discussions with folks who are in similar situations can definitely provide some comfort.
But limiting yourself (even subconsciously) to only learning from other solo attorneys can be the death of your law firm.
Here are three reasons why you need to widen your circle of advisors beyond other attorneys:
Doing what everyone else does is the easiest way to get the same results as everyone else.
This is not good.
You want better results than the other solo attorneys.
The average solo attorney (depending upon which survey you believe) makes somewhere between $85,000 and $125,000 per year by their third year in a solo practice.
This would be good money except for the fact that you probably have at least that much in school loans and you probably also have a family to feed and a mortgage to pay.
My contention is that you don’t want to be average.
You don’t want to be like everyone else. You want to make more money.
You can make more money but you need to be the EXCEPTION to the rule and that means doing things differently than 95% of the other solo attorneys that are practicing today.
Surrounding yourself with other attorneys promotes gripe sessions and not productive dialogue.
“Woe is me. My life is so hard. I don’t have enough (add noun here: i.e. time, money, clients, friends).”
You need someone to slap you and tell you to cut the crap. Other solos are less likely to do that because they feel the same thing. The group empathy is not helpful in getting you out of the rut your lack of business activity has gotten you into.
Snap out of it.
Lose the friends and advisors who are bringing you down. There are plenty of solo attorneys making great money today – even in a recession. They are doing so by taking aggressive action.
The one thing I guarantee they are not doing is sitting in Starbucks complaining about their situation.
Get away from that mentality and start surrounding yourself with business owners who are not attorneys.
You want successful business owners in your circle of influence (since business owners can complain too).
Find out what they are doing to promote their services and try it – something, anything.
Doing something different is a good thing. Listening to different people is a good thing.
Most attorneys don’t think like business owners
If you are a solo attorney, you need to think like a business owner because you are running a business.
Click continue reading to find out what you can do to get started thinking like a business owner today.
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EmailVideo: Law Firm Marketing Numbers You Need to Know
Video Notes: These are the notes for the video titled: Law Firm Marketing Numbers You Need to Know
Law firms of all sizes need to look at three numbers to determine the overall health of the firm’s marketing efforts. Those numbers are:
1). The client lifetime value for each client that works with the firm.
2). The return on investment of the firm’s marketing dollars
3). The average cost of acquisition of a new client.
Here’s how you calculate those numbers:
Client Lifetime Value
Calculate the total amount of dollars you have billed to the client. Add in the referral business this client has brought to your firm over the years.
Divide the total dollar amount by the number of years they have worked with your law firm.
Return on Investment
Take the amount you have made as a result of a particular marketing tactic or campaign and divide it by the amount of money you invested in employing that marketing tactic.
Return on Investment (ROI) is calculated at the tactic/campaign level.
Client Acquisition Cost
Client Acquisition Cost is calculated at the enterprise level. In other words, you should track the overall client acquisition cost for your entire law firm. To calculate the client acquisition cost you take the amount you invest in marketing and divide it by the number of clients.
For a BONUS tip on marketing measurement and management please click continue reading.
What You Think About Twitter Doesn’t Matter
In 3500BC when the Mesopotamians first started using the wheel to move heavy objects there was probably some resistance to making it a commonplace tool.
And when Henry Ford was motoring around Dearborn, Michigan in his car people probably thought it would never catch on.
The same is probably true of the television, and it was definitely true of the Internet.
People are resistant to things they don’t understand.
That’s the reason why I shake my head and smile when I hear people say that Twitter is a big waste of time.
Here is a newsflash:
Twitter is here to stay and it will change the face of communication as we know it.
You may not be using Twitter, you may not see a need for it, but many smart attorneys are using it as a marketing tool and it works.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a service that allows you to communicate directly with a group of people who have an interest in your thoughts and ideas. This communication is in sound bites – specifically 140 character sentences – like text messaging.
People must “subscribe” to your Twitter updates (called “tweets”) in order to receive them. Subscribing is called “following” in Twitter language. If you are following someone and they are following you, you can have a conversation via Twitter. If you want other people to “overhear” your conversation, you can direct your comment to one person specifically and let everyone see it. This is like being in a public chat room. Twitter also allows you to send private messages to another user who is following you.
Why is Twitter powerful?
Twitter is a powerful tool because it allows you to have an ongoing conversation with a specific group of people. Conversations are how relationships begin. This is the essence of good marketing.
Here is an example:
If you are a plaintiff attorney in a personal injury practice and you receive most of your matters through attorney referrals, you can easily identify other attorneys on Twitter and communicate with them regularly.
This communication will eventually lead to the development of a relationship and possibly some referred clients. If you want to develop the relationship quickly, you can send your Twitter friends links to articles you have published. You can point them to case records that are relevant to something that they are working on and you can update them on relevant news in a related filed. All of this can be done from your personal computer or from your mobile phone. It takes a few seconds.
Isn’t Twitter a Waste of Time?
I have heard this question from many people. They usually say it as a statement and not as a question that they expect to be answered.
This comment comes mostly from people who do not understand how to use this tool.
Please click continue reading for the rest of this article on Twitter.
Attorneys Need Goals Too
How will you know if you’ve reached your destination if you don’t know where you are going?
Goals are an essential part of the success of any attorney or law firm.
And you can’t just set goals on New Year’s Day and the come back and look at them a year later.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
You can do it that way—set your goals once and then check back a year later—but you may not achieve the results you’d like.
Here is the three step goal setting process I take my clients through when we first begin working together. This process has been the foundation upon which million-dollar firms are built.
Ignore it and you ignore your full potential.
Click continue reading for more on the power of setting goals
How Successful Attorneys Face Down Fear When Starting a Solo Law Firm
Do you want to go out on your own but you are waiting for the “right time”?
Perhaps you feel you need just a little more experience.
Maybe you want to save up a little more money.
You might be thinking that you need one more year.
Well, that’s just not true.
The right time is now. But for some people it just won’t matter. They will never go out on their own and start their own law firm.
Why?
Because they are paralyzed by fear.
As human beings, we all experience fear. Fear is an emotion that evolved as a form of protection from painful or possibly fatal situations. Rational fears protect us. Healthy fear keeps us from acting in ways that would put our lives in danger. It keeps us from walking into a lion’s den or placing our hands in a roaring fire. On the other hand, we develop irrational fears as the result of painful past experiences and conjure them up when we anticipate a similar negative experience. Irrational fears can hold us back and steal our dreams.
To help overcome irrational fear, many people use a great acronym that places it in the proper context. FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real.
Below are the five irrational fears that often prevent attorneys from venturing out and starting their own law firm.
The Fear of the Unknown
You don’t know what the future will bring. You may know that greater possibilities exist, but what you have now is familiar. It’s difficult to give up the certainty of the familiar for the uncertain rewards of the unfamiliar.
This major hurdle is usually associated with income, and is the fear that prevents most attorneys from going out on their own.
The best way to face down this fear is to familiarize yourself with all aspects of your future life. If you are thinking about starting your own law firm, start by talking to people who have done it. Ask them every possible question.
Once you have seen the future through the eyes of someone else, you may feel better about making the move.
The Fear of Commitment
It is human nature to want to do what you say you are going to do. In fact, it is a strong psychological force. The need for your actions to match your words drives you to follow through on whatever commitments you make. That type of commitment implies hard work, and you’d rather not commit than compromise your integrity by failing to keep your word. This is especially true when you make a commitment to yourself.
The psychology of commitment is a mental Catch-22. Your impulse to keep your word – make your commitment come true - is so great that it causes you to avoid making commitments. This includes making the commitment to yourself to live the dream of striking out on your own.
There are two ways to overcome this fear of commitment. The first is to contrast possibility with probability. If it is probable that you will accomplish the task at hand, then you should be able to make the commitment. If you have successfully managed a law practice within a large firm, it is probable that you could be successful going out on your own.
The second way to tackle this fear is to view a large commitment as a series of smaller commitments. This is the one-day-at-a-time philosophy that has proved so successful in helping people break addictions. Your short-term concern is meeting your goal today. Before you know it, your days turn into months and your months turn into years. Each day of success becomes positive reinforcing behavior. In the process, the basis of your fear becomes familiar and is no longer a threat.
The Fear of Failure
What if the change you make isn’t for the better? What will people think of you? People will laugh at you if you fail, and you’ll be embarrassed.
A great way to approach this fear is to reflect upon successful people who have had very public failures and still managed to recover. One of my favorite examples concerns the repeated public failures of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln lost his job as a clerk in a general store in 1831. He ran for the Illinois state legislature in 1832 and lost. In 1943 he failed to win his party’s nomination for a congressional seat. He tried running for the Illinois Senate in 1854. He lost. In 1858 he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate again. After each of those defeats, people laughed at Lincoln, yet in 1860, he was elected the 16th President of the United States. He has become one of history’s most respected figures. Most people do not know about his previous failures or that people laughed at him each time. Somehow, I do not think people were laughing at him when he gave the Gettysburg address.
The lesson to be learned is that history will be the ultimate judge of your success. You should not fear failure; each time you fail you are taking another step closer toward success.
To read more about how to overcome the fear that holds attorneys back and keeps them from starting their own law firm, click on continue reading.
The Importance of Finding a Niche for Your Law Firm
More and more people are becoming lawyers every day. As a matter of fact, it is one of the most common careers paths for college students today. What does this mean for your firm? It means that, going forward, competition will continue to intensify.
If you are looking for a way to make your law firm stand out from the crowd, the answer may be that you need to create a niche for your firm. Let’s face it, new law firms are springing up all the time. If you don’t want your firm to get lost in the mix, you have to do something to stand out.
There are several benefits to niche marketing.
- Firms that develop a niche work more efficiently because it easier for them to keep up with changes in the law.
- Attorneys who have a niche market are often able to charge higher fees and are often in high demand.
- Firms who have a niche also have less competition.
Decide on what area of law you would like to focus.
Developing a niche is not about choosing more of one type of case. To truly create a niche for your firm you need to have a laser like focus on one are of law. Think about what areas of law bring in the most revenue for your firm, this may be where you should establish your niche. Or think about what area of law most intrigues you. Determine if there is a decent market for a niche law firm in that area. If you think the answer is yes, then go for it.
When you decide on a niche, make sure that it is very specific. If you don’t, then you may not be making enough of a change within your firm to truly be distinctive in the marketplace.
For example, a small law firm in Chicago has created a niche in “digital trespassing” for consumers who feel that their rights have been violated by unwanted text messages and unwanted emails. While this may be a risky niche to pursue, you at least get the idea about being very specific.
First learn and then promote.
Before launching into an ad campaign to tell the world that you have a new area of focus, you first need to make sure that you are equipped to handle legal cases in your new niche. In other words, do your research. Learn as much as you can about the area that you have chosen as your specialty.
Once you have decided on a niche and your have read up on it, you will need to promote it. Think about how your marketing plan may need to change given the new direction of your firm. Let your referral sources and past clients know about your new niche. Update your website and printed materials to reflect your firm’s new direction.
For more about niche marketing and your law firm, continue reading.
How do I Feed My Family When I First Start My Law Firm?
A reader named Ben sent in a good question that is probably on the minds of many people who are thinking about starting their own law firm.
Ben said:
“I am an associate in a firm with a great client base. I have gained valuable experience during the past few years, but I would rather be the captain of the ship and I have no interest in partnering with my current employer.
Where will I get enough money to (1) start a firm; and (2) make sure my family still has a house and food?”
Many people ask this question and many more do not start their own law firm because they worry about money during the law firm start-up process.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind when you are thinking about starting a solo law practice.
First, realize that you don’t need an overwhelming amount of capital to start up a law practice. There are no set rules for infrastructure. You simply need a computer and a quiet place to work. In the beginning, you can travel to your client’s location to meet him/her so an office is not a necessity. You can use the local library or a university law library or some of the on-line sites (if you can afford the subscription fees) for research purposes. So in reality, you don’t necessarily need a lot of start-up capital.
I always recommend that attorneys who are going out on their own have at least three to six months of living expenses saved before hanging their shingle. If your spouse works, you can probably get by with less money in the bank. Having a small amount of money stashed away will give you some piece of mind as you strike out looking for your first few clients.
When it comes to clients, if you can legally, morally and ethically move some of your existing relationships to your new solo law practice, you will be off to a fast (and more comfortable) start. This is a sensitive subject and it must be handled carefully. You should thoroughly examine the situation before you approach your client about this possibility. But if they do go with you, right from the start you will have some comfort that your business will have some solid initial cash flow.
Next, you need to embrace the fact that you are in a marketing business first and foremost. Your firm exists to help people solve their legal problems but you can’t do that if they don’t know you are there.
Here are a few cost-effective tips to get you off to a fast start from a marketing perspective:
Focus on a specific niche and develop a compelling value proposition to present to prospective clients.
It is difficult for a solo attorney or a small law firm to compete with the large multinational law firms (or even a medium size local law firm) as a generalist. It is important, especially when you first go out on your own, to pick a segment of the law and “own” it—from a marketing perspective. This will help you differentiate yourself from other firms in the marketplace.You can certainly handle all transactional issues and you can work on matters in other areas— but most of your marketing should be focused on the area of the law where your expertise lies.
Call everybody you know and tell them what value you bring to the market.
Most of us have deeper natural networks than we initially realize. Our friends, family and business associates know people who are good potential clients. Word of mouth is the best possible form of advertising. The minute you decide to go out on your own, get on the telephone and let people know about the value you are bringing to the market in your new role.
Follow your phone calls with an email. Many people will save your new business information with their electronic contacts so that they can search for it later. Providing them with an email that has your contact information will allow them to do this easily.
Make sure you follow up with these people by sending them something in writing. The trusty method of putting a pen to paper and sending a note or a letter in the mail still works well. A handwritten note with a business card can be particularly effective as this helps your friends and family make a physical connection with you in your new role.
For more tips on starting up a solo law firm, click “continue reading”.
How to Compete with Large Law Firms
Starting a solo law practice or managing a small law firm can be intimidating, especially if you have to compete with large, well established law firms. However, being in a solo practice or a small law firm can mean more freedom, flexibility, and less internal red tape. On the other hand, it can also mean having to compete with firms that have a long list of talented attorneys, well known clients, and expensive advertising campaigns.
In spite of the challenges, there will always be a portion of the market that will prefer working with smaller law firms and solo practices. It is your job to use your firm’s size to your advantage. Instead of focusing on what a small firm or a solo practice can’t do compared to big firms, think about what you can do. Small firms can offer speed, flexibility, and a level of value that is often lost in large law firms. Many attorneys claim that “clients don’t hire firms, they hire lawyers.” Believe this, and use marketing and common sense to compete with large law firms.
Don’t leave image building to the big guys. Whether it is online, in your printed materials, or the way you answer the phone. Potential clients want to make sure that your small firm can handle their big problem. One of the most important hurdles for you to overcome is the idea that you may not be competent or resourceful enough to handle a client’s problem. Don’t let potential clients believe this about your firm.
One of the most common mistakes made by small law firms and solo practices is not having a website or having one that is thrown together by a cousin. Unless your cousin is Steve Jobs, then this plan will not do. Your firm’s presence online and in printed materials needs to rival that of larger firms. Don’t sacrifice professionalism to save money.
Market your law firm’s size as an asset not a liability. In our ever changing, digitally based world, many people see large, established law firms as old and set in their ways. It can be perceived that they are too large to change with the times and to shift gears or get creative. Use this to your advantage.
In your printed materials and your website, talk about how your small law firm offers personal service. Let potential clients know that you want a long term relationship with them. One of the areas where large firms tend to fail is in truly understanding the client’s goals and objectives. The client may come to you with a particular problem, but it is your job to get to the heart of what they really want for their business or for their life.
Provide out of this world customer service. Be creative in how you attack their problem. Some large law firms can leave clients feeling like they are going down an assembly line and that they’re getting the same answers that the previous client received. Don’t do this. Always remember to refer to your client’s overall goals when talking about how you are handling their case. This will make the client feel that you truly understand that their legal matter is not the only thing that matters to them.
Want more ideas for beating the big guys? Click on “continue reading” below.
The Diary of a Successful Solo Law Firm Start-Up
Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with some attorneys in New York. After I gave my brief talk, one of them came up to me and excitedly told me that I was “100 percent correct” in my approach to law firm business development. As we continued our conversation, I became more and more impressed with his personal story. You see he had developed a successful small law firm from nothing – he started as a solo about five years ago.
As I was leaving, I asked him if I could share his story with my readers – since it is a background that I believe many of us share – one of starting out at a large firm and then going out on our own. He readily agreed saying that it might be helpful for people who were unsure if they could make it on their own.
This transition, leaving a big firm and going out on your own, can be scary. George planned for it and worked toward it while he was at the big law firm he joined right out of law school. He wanted the experience that would enable him to be effective but he also wanted the freedom that came with owning his own business.
I decided that the best way to tell George’s story was to interview him and then post the interview here for all to read. Although he prefers that I don’t use his real name, George had allowed me to reprint his interview word for word.
Some brief background notes: George worked at a large firm for a little over three years when he decided to go out on his own. His first full year, he billed over $100,000. He now has several associates working with him and his billings regularly exceed double that amount in a month.
Here is his story:
Local Lawyer Talks His Way to New Clients
My cousin Jeff passed the bar exam last fall and immediately landed a job in a local law firm doing legal grunt work. I had a chance to talk with Jeff at the family picnic earlier this year. I should have known that Jeff had serious career plans because he seemed to have a unique air of confidence about him that day. I found out exactly what it was when we spoke.
Jeff told me he hated schlepping around the courthouse gathering evidence and doing what essentially amounted to legal busywork. But… he knew he’d need that kind of experience to open his own law practice, so that’s what he did. Right now he’s in the middle of opening his office in town. He tells me that most of his law professors have tried discouraging him from starting his own law firm so soon. He just shrugs that stuff off. He tells me that his favorite instructor has cautioned him about the heavy up-front expenses involved in opening a law practice.
This law professor told Jeff that it’s difficult for a new attorney to secure enough billable work in the early going. But that doesn’t seem to be bothering Jeff much. He’s been accumulating paying clients for the past year while working for his present firm.
In fact, it seems that Jeff might actually be more popular than some of the more established attorneys in town. How could that be?
The answer is actually pretty surprising. Jeff has been hosting his own legal advice radio show. And the show has developed a good following.
Here’s how he did it.
