When you think of a "solo attorney," do you envision a small-scale operator or a savvy general practitioner? The reality is that solo and small firm practices exhibit as much diversity as the individuals you encountered in law school. Indeed, the role of a solo attorney is essentially what you decide to make of it.
However, the question arises: How challenging is it to succeed as a solo practitioner? The answer hinges on how you define "success." What specific areas of law do you aim to specialize in? Do you find fulfillment in managing exponential growth in a high-volume practice, or do you prefer handling a select number of high-value cases with meticulous care and attention? Initiating a solo practice may be straightforward, but cultivating and expanding it presents an entirely different set of challenges.
Should I open my own law firm?
Certainly, starting a solo practice is an appealing venture, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. It requires discipline and an inclination towards running a business rather than merely operating a legal clinic. Success as a solo practitioner is for those who have an interest in the financial aspects, are comfortable with an unconventional work schedule, and can embrace the uncertainties that come with entrepreneurship.
However, it may not be suitable for those seeking a strict 9-to-5 routine, absolute certainty, and unwavering job security. The challenges encompass handling stress, managing demanding clients, navigating issues with software and accounting, addressing human resources matters, and engaging in marketing and business development. Running your own business entails a multitude of responsibilities that extend beyond legal expertise, and it demands a certain resilience and adaptability to thrive in the dynamic landscape of solo practice.
Get actionable steps from successful legal entrepreneurs in our Guide to Starting a Law Firm.
Becoming a solo lawyer is a unique journey, and the motivations behind this career choice vary among individuals. If you ask ten different lawyers about their decision to enter solo practice, you'll likely receive ten different stories. Reasons may include a desire to break away from BigLaw, a preference for independence over working for someone else, a genuine passion for helping people, inheriting a family practice, or simply wanting to achieve financial success.
It's essential to understand that starting a solo practice doesn't have to be a permanent commitment. Many lawyers who initially ventured into solo practice later joined established firms after realizing challenges associated with billing, marketing, human resources, and business management.
Launching a solo law firm reflects a deep passion for the legal profession and a strong work ethic. It showcases qualities that can make you an attractive candidate for employment with a firm, even if they overlooked you just a few years earlier.
When considering whether starting a solo law firm is right for you, reflect on your priorities and values. Examine your financial goals, such as the income you aim to generate and the growth trajectory you envision for your practice. Assess the seed money you're willing to invest, the annual profits needed for growth, and the financial support required for your family.
Prior to launching, conduct thorough research. Listen to legal podcasts, read recommended legal and non-legal literature, analyze the competition in your market, and allocate funds for startup costs to sustain you during slower periods. This groundwork is crucial for setting the foundation of a successful solo practice.
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Ask yourself if it is the right time to start a solo practice
Taking a somewhat controversial stance, it's argued that there is never an ideal time to start a solo practice. However, if your intuition strongly urges you to pursue this path despite the risks, your passion may empower you to transform obstacles into opportunities as you navigate the challenges ahead.
Nevertheless, acknowledging that there are certain circumstances that could be deemed unfavorable for launching a new venture is important. Significant medical bills, the arrival of a new baby, or other major life events can create added complexities and stress. In such situations, it may be prudent to postpone starting a solo practice for the time being. Evaluating the external factors affecting your life and ensuring that you have the bandwidth to handle the demands of a new business is a practical consideration before taking the plunge.
Consider an alternative legal career
Exploring Alternative Paths for Lawyers
I've encountered multiple attorneys who opted for solo practice because they found BigLaw unappealing. This raises a significant question: was it the firm culture or the practice of law itself that led to their dissatisfaction? The legal profession can be demanding and sometimes unrewarding.
If it's the practice of law that truly ignites your passion, and it was the work environment that dampened your spirits, going solo might be the right move. However, it's crucial to reflect deeply and ensure that practicing law is your ultimate goal. A law degree opens up avenues beyond traditional practice:
- Legal Content Writer: Drawing on my personal experience, I've served as a legal content writer, marketing director for a multimillion-dollar law firm, and a marketing consultant for a diverse portfolio of firms.
- Legal Compliance: A close friend of mine writes legal compliance documents for a major entertainment conglomerate's intranet, showcasing how legal skills can be applied outside the courtroom.
- Legal Consulting: Embracing a role as a legal consultant allows you to leverage similar skills without the constraints of court dates, offering greater flexibility in your career.
- Legal Tech: Many startup founders with JD credentials are currently revolutionizing various legal domains, including divorce, bankruptcy, legal research, intellectual property case filing, and more.
- In essence, while solo practice is a valid choice, it's essential to recognize that a law degree opens doors to a diverse array of career paths. Careful consideration can lead to a fulfilling and rewarding professional journey beyond the traditional realms of legal practice.
Decide what practice area to focus on
Expanding Your Practice Area
Choose what you're familiar with, and carve out a niche.
During my initial foray into solo practice, I opted for family law, a field I had already interned in during law school. I appreciated the daily intricacies and how everything fell into place.
For my subsequent solo venture, I took a unique approach by selecting a niche practice that was uncommon and yet in demand for nearly half of the population: Qualified Domestic Relations Orders (QDROs). This specialized area involves navigating the intricacies of retirement account division in accordance with federal law following a divorce.
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The benefits of the latter strategy have been numerous:
It was good business. There are maybe two dozen attorneys in the country who do this well. In New York City, if you ask Google, I am pretty much the only one. I also practice remotely back in California, and I am maybe one of a dozen there. Consider that nearly all people have retirement accounts and roughly half of all marriages end in divorce, and you can see that there is a massive market opportunity there.
It worked well as a volume practice. Given my fascination with efficiency, software, and start-up principles, a growth-focused law firm that builds its own tools to scale legal practice, communication with clients, and excellent service while simultaneously scaling making actual money, was the sort of challenge I’m into.
I loved the niche focus. A practice that focuses on post-judgment court orders that incorporate ERISA and state domestic relations law is above all interesting to me.
You should plan as much of this out as possible before going solo. And you need to be realistic:
You may have to move more volume cases now. When you become a recognized expert in your field, leverage that experience to trim your caseload while maintaining your revenue.
Determine the tools you need to start off on the right foot
Check the cost of tools you currently use and like and see if it is something that a solo can bear.
This is also a good opportunity to migrate from an old school platform, like Time Matters, that your prior firm forced you to use.
Most solos will be better off starting with a cloud-based legal practice management platform. For tracking time, hourly billing, trust accounting, and sorting out client files, a do-it-all platform like that will save you immense amounts of time over trying to handle things with an Excel spreadsheet.
Typically, it all boils down to setting up demos with all of your options and taking a couple of hours with each to see which one fits your ideal vision of a practice and workflow.
How to set yourself up for success as a solo practitioner
Create a law firm business plan
Writing a legal disclaimer template
If you are launching your own law firm with no plan, your odds of success are going to be slim.
With a business plan, you outline your goals, realistic projections for revenue and expenses, overhead, market and marketing strategies, and more. The plan serves as a loose map to success, one that you are free to deviate from, but which will likely redirect you back to the course time and again whenever those “issues” threaten to derail you.
Follow these steps to create a strong law firm business plan.
1. Create a long term budget
Photo of a law firm budget with a lightbulb
To run a successful solo law firm, you will eventually have to invest in marketing, support staff, software that makes you more efficient, as well as CLEs, malpractice insurance, bar dues, etc.
You’ll probably need to add in a budget for a law firm website, and budgets for ongoing advertising on Google and social media, or any other marketing you think will pay off. And don’t forget budgeting for support staff!
2. Decide how you’re going to market your business
Image of a yellow graph on a blue background
The truth is, every firm and practice area will have a different path to marketing success. It might be LinkedIn advertisements and webinars to small businesses. It might be Facebook Ads with puppy dog faces talking about pet trusts.
Three things every successful law firm marketing campaign needs though are:
Proper tracking. Every dollar that goes in, and every dollar that comes back in the form of client revenue, needs to be tracked and compared.
Willingness to experiment. It hurts to lose money on a marketing experiment, but if everything in marketing was a certainty, the three or four firms with the largest budgets would win every single time. Not every ad is going to resonate, not every social campaign is going to lead to lucrative cases, but if you have the guts to throw a couple hundred bucks at an experiment to gather data, you will identify a few winners that you can scale.
Investment. There are a ton of great strategies for building an online marketing presence that involves unpaid channels: Maps listings and search engine optimization are the two most effective. But it takes years to build an authoritative presence that way. In the meantime, you still need clients, and that requires paid marketing.
3. Determine where you will work
Remote office setup
Many people questioned how the practice of law would change due to the pandemic. I’m not sure about lawyers and their ability to change. But I will say that clients have changed already. Remote work is the norm, and clients want to connect remotely.
If you need to work from home, most practice areas will be amenable to the idea, as will the clients these days. Consider saving yourself the office rent and building a virtual law firm instead, especially in the first year that you are in business.
4. Make sure you get malpractice insurance
Even if your state does not require it, malpractice insurance is a good idea. The insurance policy will provide you with an attorney and some financial backing if crap hits the fan.
If you are new to practicing solo, shop around and check with your local bar. Many policies will have extremely discounted rates for first and second-year solo attorneys. Sometimes, state and local bars will have discount programs as well for young lawyers.
Follow these steps to choose a legal malpractice insurance provider.
5. Consider contract or part-time work
Image of a clock with time for work, life, and exercise
Starting any new business is going to mean ebbs and flows of the cash flow. You might have one week where you bring in $13,000 in new business, followed by three or four weeks where you bring in zero dollars.
Contract work is a great way to cushion the blow of irregular cash flow.
Consider doing some freelance attorney work on the side, or asking around to see if other lawyers in your network need help on big cases.
Name your law firm
Whatever you pick, make it memorable so that people searching for your business online can actually find you. Note: Be sure to check ethics rules around trade names for law firms in your jurisdiction.
6. Get more tips for naming your law firm here.
Register your business
You’ll probably need to register your business with your local government, and register for federal and state tax IDs, which really only takes a few minutes online these days.
Set up your bank accounts
Most practices will need at least a trust account and an operating account. Having them at the same bank makes it easy to transfer funds and to convince your bank to charge any and all banking fees to the operating account.
7. Announce your grand opening
Throw a mixer with family, friends, and professional networks. You want to make sure that everyone knows that you are open for business, as referrals really are the best source of quality cases.
8. Get started.
If reading this article already has your head swimming, that’s perfectly normal. Take a deep breath, maybe take a few days, and then ask yourself again whether you should become a solo attorney.
For me, no job has ever been as exciting as my career as an attorney. I really feel that the most happiness I have ever gained professionally has come from being a lawyer-prenuer.
It’ll take planning, a budget, and more time than you ever expected to deal with the business side of things, but at the end of each day, you’ll know that all of the work you put in was towards building a business that is uniquely you. It’s hard to make it, but it’s absolutely worth it.
