How to Start a Law Firm | Specialty Practice or General Practice?

So, you've decided to start a law firm. Great. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or newly out of law school a very important decision that needs to be made before you start out on your own is if you want to have a specialty law practice or niche law firm, or if you want to be a general practice law firm, handling a little of everything.

If you have some experience in a particular area this may be a fairly easy decision. Depending on the work available (and never, ever let the fact that you are a small firm keep you from exploring a particular practice area) and your feelings toward the practice area you may just want to keep on doing what you are doing.

For example, I am leaving a government job doing eminent domain law, real estate transactions and advising, and some general day to day advising. I love the work that I do, so I am going to pursue these three areas as my primary practice area. I may do something else from time to time for friends or something, but I will not be taking a call in case if it does not fit within my practice area.

Update - 10/7/09: I have decided to do something else, since the market, and people losing their property to the government, didn't need me (or I couldn't find them). So, now you are reading a blog from a Seattle DUI defense lawyer.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each decision. As you've just heard, I will be turning potential clients away at my new law firm if they do not need the criminal defense and DUI defense services I am offering. This is definitely a drawback.

On the other hand, however, it can also be a benefit with the potential to make some easy money. As you get out into the world, you will meet other attorney's that practice in other areas. So long as you trust them to do a good job, and your local ethical rules allow it, it is beneficial to both of you to form attorney referral relationship.

A benefit of specializing is that it is much easier to become known in the community as an expert. Experts almost always make more money in the long run. As you work in a particular area your name will become more well known, and assuming you do a good job, people will start to come to you for specific work. Being recognized as someone who knows what they are doing commands more money, plain and simple. For example, in a couple of years I should be able to build myself up as one of the better DUI defense attorneys in Seattle, maximizing my appealability to people with those specific problems.

Whatever you decide to do, the great thing is, when starting a law firm, if the path you've chosen isn't working, you can just change it. If you start out as a general practitioner and end up finding an area of the law that you love, just start focusing on that. If you start your law firm as a specialist and decide you don't like it, just start taking other clients.

I think in the end your new law firm will thrive and get more clients by specializing in something. But it can come naturally. You'd be surprised at the opportunities that will walk in your door. You just have to have the foresight to take advantage of them!

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Your Weekly Writing Exercise--Pick One Memory

A writer from Minneapolis emailed me: "I just came across an idea for your writing exercises. You may have heard of it already, but it's a new one to me and has me quite intriqued as to how I'll write about it. It was in the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune under theatre performances."

Here's the exercise, from Workhouse Theatre Company: "You are passing through to eternity, and you must select one memory you can take with you--of everything you've ever done, felt or thought. You have one hour. Choose."

Cool idea. Use it for your writing this week. What memory--of everything--would you take with you? Write about it. Click here to learn more about Workhouse.

Starting a Law Firm | Networking to Get Clients

If there is one constant in any law firm, whether just starting out or established for decades, it is the need for new business. In almost any circumstance, current clients, although possibly returning for services at a later date, will only need your services for a short amount of time (or for a limited need). Once a project or conflict is resolved, then the client moves on and you are left needing a new client.

Getting clients to your new law firm in most cases is not that hard. There is, however, a right way and a wrong way to do (or at least a way that is much more efficient and successful than many others). In almost all cases it involves that ambiguous term called "networking." I say ambiguous because there are many different philosophies related to networking.

Because I want my law firm to be successful, and I want my clients to be representative of me, I have been trying to learn all I can about how to find and then sign up the perfect clients for my new law firm. One of my resources is a book by Stephanie Palmer called "Good in a Room: How to Sell Yourself (and Your Ideas) and Win Over any Audience."

Good in a Room takes a novel approach to networking, based on the author's experiences in the film industry listening to movie screenplay pitches. By hearing over 3,000 pitches, Palmer began to notice some things that worked and did not work, and then took those insights and created this book about networking in general. Although there are chapters on running the perfect meeting (where you are pitching your services) there are also chapters on things like good places to network (not a chamber of commerce meeting), good places and the correct way to pitch your services to someone (not an elevator) and much much more.

A lot of what Palmer has to say translates to starting a law firm and I plan to integrate most of her practices and suggestions.

I'd highly recommend this book to all attorneys responsible for bringing in business, whether well established or just starting out. Building true relationships is the key, not handing out as many business cards as you can. Take a look at this book if you are starting a small law firm. It will not disappoint.

Related Posts:

Starting a Law Firm | Getting Clients

Starting a Law Firm | Challenges of Signing up Clients

Starting a Law Firm | Marketing in a New Way

Starting a Law Firm | Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

In a previous post I laid out my starting a law firm to do list, including 13 or so items I needed to get done so my firm can hit the ground running when the doors open. So far I haven't gotten any of the things done, though I have started at least 3 of the to do list items. As I look back through the list again I can see I have set myself up for failure for two reasons - so I need to modify the to do list and modify my philosophy for completing the to do list.

First and foremost, my law firm to do list is not specific enough, and it is causing me to not get anything done because I'm trying to figure out what I need to do first. I'm sure this happens to you, probably when you are trying to write a complicated brief or structure a complicated argument. You know what you want the result to be, but getting there requires several pieces to be completed first.

For example, item number one is putting together my law firm website. I have several things I need to get done, but I haven't sequenced them and broken them down into their parts so I have a distinct plan to follow and so I can get some sense of accomplishment from crossing things off my to do list. Preliminarily setting up the site so it has content is probably made up of more than one step. So step one should really be figuring out what I have to do to get my site up and running and then do those things.

So, number one on my how to start a law firm to-do list is to refine my to do list into manageable, reachable action items. Once that happens then I can actually focus on getting tasks done, as opposed to thinking about what needs to get done to get tasks done (if you aren't confused by that last sentence, good for you!).

The second thing going on with starting a law firm is I am getting really bogged down in the details, wanting everything to be perfect. For example, I spent a couple of hours on the internet last night trying to price a laptop for my practice. In reality, I don't need some state of the art computer to be successful. I need something that has enough memory to hold a lot of pictures and pdf files, and I need microsoft word and power point. That is really about it. So, when looking for a computer, how hard can that be?

I'm falling victim to law firm paralysis by analysis, a common problem among entrepreneurs, I think. I need to remember that one of the great things about opening a law firm is that you have the flexibility and the authority to change things whenever you feel like they need to be changed. That will not mean that my decisions, particularly when significant money or time allocations are involved, will be made willy nilly, but there comes a time when you just have to pull the trigger and move on to something else.

Starting a law firm really has been and I think will continue to be a very humbling and rewarding experience. And moving forward I have to goals: (1) better define what needs to be done and break those things down into smaller pieces; and (2) make concise, quick decisions and move on to the next item.

Hopefully in meeting these new goals I'll be able to knock out several items on my to do list and get this law firm up and running!

Related Posts:

Starting a Law Firm | Too Many Law Students?

Starting a Law Firm | Getting Paid

Does Your Writing Show or Tell? Learn from Robert Olen Butler

Anton Chekhov wrote, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Showing is a demonstration of emotion through specific details. Telling can bring in an almost intellectual assessment of what happened. Showing, the opposite, requires very little intellectual language. It relies instead on sensory detail (smells, sights, sounds).   While telling backs away from the moment, summarizing feelings from a distance, showing places the reader squarely in it. 

The key to showing is to demonstrate. This means not interpreting the things you are placing in front of us.

Robert Olen Butler, author of many wonderful stories and novels and instructor at this writing at Florida State University’s MFA program, talks about this in his book From Where You Dream (Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2005). To deliver emotion in its purest form, don’t dilute it with interpretation. Butler observed that emotion can be delivered to a reader (shown, versus told) generally in five ways. Here is my translation of his terms:

• what I am feeling inside my body (goosebumps on my arm, itchy foot, tight throat)

• what I am observing in your gestures and movements (tearing a small paper napkin into bits, jiggling foot)

• specific memory

• fear, anticipation, desire (projections into future)

• sense selectivity (during moments of extreme emotion, all but one sense goes away)

During the developing stage of book writing, whenever I need to change a scene to more “showing,” I will go through Butler’s list and ask myself how I can bring in one of these.

This week, translate a passage that "tells" into one that "shows," using one of the above techniques.  What happened?

Starting a Law Firm | The Best Law Firm Website

If you are starting a law firm and haven't thought about what your website will look like, how you will get people to your website, or what purposes your website will serve, you have not yet gotten out of the starting blocks. And you will notice that I didn't mention considering having a website. If you are going to have a law firm in this day and age, you need to have a website. And if you are going to have a law firm website, you might as well make sure people can find it. Below I'll give you a little information answering the questions answered above, just in case you haven't considered them yet.

1. Website Design

A successful law firm website does not need to be flashy. Streaming video and bells and whistles, while nice, won't necessarily get you new client (unless your potential clients will look for this - something you need to know before you begin to design your website). What your law firm website does need is three things:

(1) it needs to quickly and easily identify the firms practice areas, the firms value proposition, and why the firm is good for the client;

(2) it needs to display your address and contact information on every page; and

(3) it needs to look clean, like you spent some time on its design and work flawlessly.

Quickly and easily identifying the firms practice areas is easy. Simply sit down and write out what it is you do, why you are good at it, and how you can help those that find your website. You can say more about each practice area, the individual attorneys, and whatever else you want on separate tabbed pages. I would also recommend placing an RSS feed on the front page of your site to display your latest blog postings from your practice area blogs (another must have).

For example, my firm will have on the opening page something about ending the billable hour and providing clients with efficient, effective results with fixed fee legal help. It will invite people to contact us for more information, and my two practice area blogs, one on Seattle Washington eminent domain and condemnation, including:

receiving just compensation for Washington land takings,

and one on Seattle small business law, including:

choosing a business structure;

starting a Seattle business;

dissolving a Seattle business;

hiring employees in Washington;

Seattle employment law;

and how to find a good Seattle small business lawyer.

The key here is to be short, sweet concise, and honest. This will be your first contact with potential customers most of the time, and it is important to begin to build that trust with them.

2. Display your Law Firm Contact Info on Every Page

A primary goal is to make it easy for customers to contact you once they've decided you are the one. Why make them search around for that information? Prominently displaying that information at the bottom of every page (along with your legal disclaimer) is the best place to put it, as that is often where people will look first.

Separate from your contact information but equally as important is putting your logo on every page. Seeing that you have a specific law firm logo (and hopefully one that has been at least semi-professionally designed) helps to build that sense of trust, if for no other reason than people will naturally think that a firm with a well put together law firm website and a well designed logo must have their stuff together.

3. Make the Law Firm Website Look Great and Make it Work Flawlessly

A messy law firm website is like a messy desk - even though you think it makes you look busy, it really just makes you look unorganized and errant. Take the time to really think about what your firm website looks like. Get on the internet and look at other websites (please DO NOT just look at legal websites - doing more of the same is not a recipe for success in this business). Take notes on what you like and don't like and incorporate those things into your site.

If you do not know how to create a website, don't fret. Part of being a lawyer, and starting your own law firm, is creatively solving problems. In this day and age not only is there plenty of software that makes website design easy, but nearly everyone under the age of 23 has designed or knows how to design a website. Put a flier up outside the local college and let a computer science major put it together for a few hundred bucks and the authority to let him take credit for designing your sight. Having a great website will get you clients. Don't skimp here.
And finally, make sure your law firm website works. Once you have it up and working, go online and test every link and every page on the sight. Make sure not only that all the links work (and convey the image you want) but that they work at an appropriate speed.

If you go to many law firm websites they have a bunch of bells and whistles but load so slowly by the time everything pops up you are ready to find someone else. Imaging you are a potential customer looking for an attorney. Are you impressed? Don't stop working until you are.

Now that you have figured out what your site is going to look like (this is on my starting a law firm to do list this week, and once my site is actually up and running I will direct it to you so you can let me know what you think) you need to start taking steps so people can find it when they search on the internet. Optimizing a law firm website is not hard, but it isn't necessarily natural. My next post will help you with this.

Related Posts:

Staring a Law Firm Blog | Part 1

Starting a Law Firm Blog | Part 2

Starting a Law Firm | Internet Marketing

Starting a Law Firm | The Google Sandbox

Opening a Law Firm | New To Do List

In the past few weeks a lot has happened, slowing my posting here. First, I am officially an eminent domain trial lawyer! I finished up my case in Kansas and ended up with a great result. Second, I am preparing for my move to Seattle, Washington, which will take place in exactly three weeks! And although my Seattle criminal law practice won't be able to open until May, there is a lot I can do now to get ready.

So, without further delay, here is what is next on my list of things to do for starting a law firm. And by the way, I know I have shifted away from the specific to the more general lately, so the plan is to give you the to do list today, and as I cross things off the list explain what I did and how I did it so when you go out to do it you can save time and money. Sound good? Let's get started.

To Do List for Starting a Law Firm

1. Create and Get up and Running my law firm website.

This includes securing a domain name, purchasing website creation software, preliminarily setting up the site so it has some content, and putting together a draft of the pages I want and content I want on the site. If you didn't know, if you don't have a law firm website you're a dinosaur. Everything begins and ends here.

2. Office Set-Up and Pricing.

This includes: finding the exact laptop I want for the law practice; determining the exact price for the laptop; figuring out how to set up the laptop so I can use it as a dual screen with my desktop; finding and pricing the laptop dock I want; finding and pricing the exact printer and scanner I want; and figuring out how to get all of this financed.

3. Finalize the Law Firm Business Plan.

This speaks for itself. I have already sent the business plan out to a couple of people for review (Alison are you going to get back to me?!! :) ), but I'd like to more specifically outline my marketing plan so I can have a list of action items and a true legal marketing plan to hit the ground running.

4. Continue Increasing the Search Engine Optimization for My Blogs.

Search engine optimization is the practice of taking specific steps to increase the likelihood of your law firm website ranking high in the search engines for specific keywords. For example, when people search Seattle DUI attorney, I'd like both my blog and my firm website to be on the first page of Google. Getting that result is not necessarily hard, but it does take a little elbow grease - including posting on the sites as often as possible. Don't worry, I'll explain in much more detail later.

5. Post to My Legal Blogs Every Other Day.

This is for three reasons. First, see #4. Search engine optimization requires good content. Second, this is the easiest and one of the most effective ways to establish yourself as an expert in your field (DUI defense and criminal defense, for example). And third, posting requires you to delve deeper into your subject matter, both for content and analysis, actually increasing your expertise.

6. Draft Outline of Firm Brochure.

This one speaks for itself, but I will say that one of the primary differences my firm will have from many traditional law firms is no fear of aggressive, targeted marketing. Law is a profession, but if people don't know about you you will never be able to help them.

7. Create Law Firm Logo.

This one also speaks for itself. But I will say having a sharp law firm logo can't help but make your law firm at least appear to be more successful.

8. Draft Client Intake Sheet for Eminent Domain and Small Business Clients.

In addition to the usual background information this is a good way to get other useful information that you can use to build a successful practice and increase the likelihood of a successful relationship with the customer.

9. Create the Small Business Monthly Fee Schedule with Levels of Service.

Part of my law firm business philosophy is eliminating the billable hour. I will have more posts on this to come, but when really analyzed hourly billing diminishes the practice of law to a commodity, promotes inefficient processes and strategies, limits your earning potential as a lawyer, and doesn't always promote client goals, particularly when giving advice to clients (although my answer to the question may take only 5 minutes, it is based on years of experience - would you rather be paid for the 5 minutes or the experience behind it?).

So I plan on creating a fee structure eliminating the billable hour and instead focusing on customer service and satisfaction through an agreed to flat fee based on the value provided to the client.

10. Create a Firm Process for Resolving Client Matters and Handling Client Matters

Part of the craziness of an attorney's life is sometimes the unstructuredness of it. I want to implement firm policies and procedures to eliminate the feeling of helplessness with my schedule and create a consistent customer experience no matter who the customer may be dealing with at the firm.

11. Finalize a Specific Marketing Plan.

Again with the marketing. Opening a successful law firm requires locating and finding clients when you start with none. With this action item I intend to establish my marketing plan on a yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily basis. I already know it will include email updates, newsletters, direct mail, postcards, targeted print advertising, publishing articles, and public speaking. Now I just need to specifically define how and when I'll do each of those.

12. Create a "Prospect Kit."

Again, this all goes back to demonstrating to customers and potential customers of your new law firm not only that you are experienced and can handle their problems but that you care about them. This prospect kit will probably include a practice area guide, testimonials, a biography, a sheet on value pricing versus hourly billing, a published article relating to the prospect's business, and a personalized cover letter. You must remember the practice of law is highly competitive. If you want clients you have to go get them.

As you can see, the list if fairly exhaustive. I have a lot to do in the coming weeks and months (and this isn't even close to all of it). Starting a law firm is not easy! Many of these items will probably take the longest because many involve content creation - no easy task. Although it will be tough and monotonous at times, this is the reason I am doing this - to control my own destiny!

I plan on updating here frequently on my progress, including step by step details of exactly what I've been doing. Feel free to comment and provide suggestions, and I hope this helps you answer the question of how to start a law firm.

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Your Creative Vocal Chords--How to Warm Them Up

William Wordsworth said, "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."  We're not all poets.  But all of us have these breathings of the heart, which some call voice.

Voice is your passion, your style, the things you must write, the way you must write them.  But voice can easily be squelched.  It can go through silent passages, coming out in a mere whisper.  The biggest problem in silent passages is that you don’t know they’re happening at first. They start innocently—a tiny bit of boredom with your characters, a chapter that feels rough with no inspiring fixes. These pile up and an overactive Inner Critic can make them seem worse. Slowly the silence inside the writer grows, until words trickle to a stop.

Educator Steve Peha from Teaching That Makes Sense http://www.ttms.org/ says voice is a combination of choices a writer makes. In other subjects, we all learn the same rules and theories.  Think:  math equations, history facts.  Creative writing is supposed to showcase the individual and how individual they can be and still communicate well.

“Everyone’s writing needs to be different from everyone else’s,” writes Peha. “The set of all the different choices a writer makes, and the collective effect they have on the reader, is what is often called ‘voice’ in a piece of writing.” Choices include your style of language, the words you use, the length of your sentences and paragraphs, tone.  Just like in conversation.


And conversation--with yourself--is the key.  Having a regular writing practice is the single most important way to gain and belief in yourself, and keep the writing voice warmed up.

This week, try writing every day for 5 minutes.  Just 5 minutes.  Observe the excuses and grumblings that might float (or thud) in during the first few days.  Then observe what happens once your voice gets warmed up. 

Check in here to let our book-writing community know how your 5 minutes/day went. 

Starting a Law Firm | Does the Economy Matter?

The short answer is no, you should not worry about the economy when starting a law firm. The practice of law seems to be a funny thing in that even in hard times legal advice is needed. That is not to say, however, that when the economy is tanking, as it is right now, that you can just announce you are open for business and begin counting money. Here are the a top five things to you can do to help your law firm survive an economic downturn from How to Start a Law Firm.

1. Make Sure the Law Firm Business Plan is Well Thought Out and Very Thorough.

Know how they say time is money? That saying holds even more truth in down economic times, where a missed opportunity may mean no opportunity for your firm. How can you be sure to maximize every opportunity you are presented? Make sure your law firm business plan is complete. You will have defined your goals and will be able to immediately recognize an opportunity or a potential client, that could determine the success or failure of your young firm.

2. Market Market Market Your New Law Firm.

Although you may think because there are less people out there requiring your services so you should focus on the clients you have, the truth is this is the most important time to market to potential legal clients and keep the business coming in. When you have poured over the case you have for the 10th time you are going to need something else to do. Finding potential clients when the pool is shallow is critical to your law firm's success.

3. Don't Forget About Past and Present Law Firm Clients Though.

Law firm marketing doesn't just mean finding new clients. It also means looking at your past clients. If they have utilized your law firm's services before, there is a chance they may need some help again. Give them a call, let them know your new law firm is still doing well in these hard economic times and ask how they are doing. You'd be surprised how many times a former client has work they just have not had time to ask you to complete.

For example, I'm a Seattle DUI defense attorney. In my practice I'd expect there will be times when former clients need to come back to me for help. I'm going to make sure they remember what a good job I did for them.

4. Limit Unnecessary Law Firm Expenses.

This one is pretty self explanatory. Do not splurge on things you do not need. The belt needs to tighten in hard economic times. Maybe this means an alternative office arrangement when you start a law firm. Hopefully you have set up the budget in your law firm business plan so nothing unnecessary is splurged on. Whatever it is, try to hold back unless it is immediately necessary.

5. Continue to Provide Excellent Service.

One of the great things about economic downturns is when an upturn begins. Don't shoot yourself in the foot during the downturn by providing less than stellar service. When staring a new law firm or continuing the success of an established law firm, your law firm reputation is everything.

Just because you may end up losing money on a specific case (assuming it was your error and not a lack of payment by the client) doesn't mean you should diminish your level of service. At some point the economy will turn and people will have money to do things like sue people and they will remember the help that you gave them when times were tough. If you do a good job of stating your value proposition to the client and agreeing to a fee that accounts for your services, you shouldn't be faced with this problem too often.

In the end, there is no better time to start a law firm than now. There will always be things standing in your way. If you wait until everything is perfect, you will never open your law firm doors. So just get out there and do it!

Related Posts:

Starting a Law Firm | Getting Clients

Starting a Law Firm | Favorite Blogs

Pace Yourself: An Exercise to Create Rhythm in Your Writing

Like changing seasons that move elegantly into each other, a good book has an almost invisible rhythm called pacing.

Excellent pacing creates music a reader can resonate with. Pacing makes writing memorable.

An Important Tool for Your Writing
Pacing is one of the most complex and exciting tools in book writing. It’s the speed of the story, the balance of anecdotes and concepts, the ebb and flow of the writing. Pacing determines your paragraph and sentence lengths, where you put in a line of dialogue, where you muse, where you wax lyrical over a setting.

Two-Page Squint
To study how different writers deliver pacing to a reader—find a favorite book.  Open it, hold two pages up, squint at them, and see the balance of white space to text. Notice how conversation sections have more white space, description has less. So dialogue usually equals faster pace, and description (summary) equals slower pace.

Studying the Pacing in Your Own Writing
Now study the pacing in your own work.  For this week's exercise, find two favorite pages of your writing.  Read it aloud. 

Freewrite for 10 minutes on these questions:
What rhythm do you perceive?
Is the pacing fast or slow?
Where does it vary?