This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which was scheduled to run between June 17 and July 3, 2014 and was extended one more day to include some additional guest posts. 

This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Liz Araguás

If you are a law student considering going solo after graduation, there’s no time like the present to get your practice started. Of course, you can’t actually practice law until you’ve earned your license, but there are many things you can do now to decrease lag time and increase earnings as you transition into your next chapter. During my own 3L year, I decided to look into starting a mediation practice. Although I wasn’t planning on becoming a solo practice attorney at that point, the steps I took to prepare for self-employment as a mediator really helped me as I started my law and mediation practice. I’ve compiled a list of tips, both those I followed and those I wish I had known about, to get your practice off the ground before you don your cap and gown (or quit your current job).

  • Use your remaining schooling to your advantage

    • For me, 3L year earned its reputation as the most boring year of law school. My GPA was pretty much set, I had completed most of my required core courses, and recognized that few of the electives taught much in the way of practical law. Once I decided to commit to pursuing self-employment, however, I discovered many ways to use my remaining months of the 3L doldrums to my advantage.

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which was scheduled to run between June 17 and July 3, 2014 and was extended one more day to include some additional guest posts. 

     This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger  Women Lawyers News

    The flexibility of entrepreneurship and solo practice presents a challenge to working efficiently.   Yet, working efficiently is key to maximizing available time for family, friends, or additional business opportunities.  Try starting your morning by reviewing your to-do list, weeding down, and writing a roadmap for your whole day.

    Here are five reasons to give this a try:

    1. Increased focus.  Our days are full of temptation to jump from one project to another, tackling what pops up in front of us.  If you are scheduled to check your email from 9-9:20 a.m., dismissing a 9:07 a.m. distraction is easier.  Focusing is also easier when you are only required to attend to one thing for a limited period of time.

    2. Better time allocation.  Scheduling provides the opportunity to allocate time to the most important tasks.  Otherwise, tasks that are more noticeable but less important may attract unjustified attention.   When an unscheduled task inevitably pops up, “screen” the task to see if it is important enough to warrant changing your roadmap.

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

    This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger  Dr. Sandra Thompson

    Part 1 of this series focused on three tips for getting started incorporating social media into your marketing efforts: 1) identify someone at your firm who will handle social media updates, 2) review the various social media sites to determine what is the best fit for your practice, and 3) separate your professional social media accounts from your personal social media accounts. If you have decided to spend this upcoming long weekend setting up one or more new social media accounts or evaluating how you can improve the ones you currently have, I encourage you to also go back and read my first article on Impact Marketing. This article is going to pull both that first article and Part 1 of this series together and provide some easy ways to boost your social media presence, help your clients and generate more business.

    Boost Your Social Media Presence

    The first thing you need to do is start letting others know that you are using social media for your practice and that it is in their interest to follow you. If you like to write, or if you have written something recently on as aspect of the law, post it to your website and then cross post it to Facebook and Twitter. As part of that – pay attention to your “News”, “Events” and/or “Publications” links/tabs on your website. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited a site for another attorney, clicked on those links and found that the last piece of news or the last event was from one or more years ago. You must be an advocate for yourself and your business – and the way to do that is to let everyone know what you are doing in the community, where you are speaking, what awards you are getting, what you care about in the law and why they should consider you the attorney for their legal matters. 

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

    This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Dwayne Allen Thomas

    1. Introduction

    I’ve got a bit of bad news for you. The term “business development” is undefined. This lack of a definition helps to explain why one can apply for a job in business development and end up in a pure sales job, and why others think of “business development” as somewhere between sales and marketing. Despite this lack of definition, Googling the term returns 456 million results. Including the word “lawyer” only knocks the number of results down to 49 million. Among these results are websites with tips, checklists, and even entire books on the subject. All for a phrase with no definition.

    I think we can do better than “undefined,” especially if this article is going to be useful to anyone. I therefore propose the following definition, based on what I thought the term meant the first time I heard it: Business development encompasses all activities a company[1] takes to maintain or expand its customer base and ultimately sell its product or services to those customers.[2] [For the purposes of this definition, the word “company” includes all forms of business (think sole proprietorships and non-profit organizations); “customers” includes “clients;” and “sell” is construed very broadly with reference to non-profit organizations, as their end goal is some form of charitable giving rather than an exchange of goods for money.]Under this definition, “business development” becomes an umbrella term, with at least the following functions falling under the umbrella: 

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

     This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Dr. Sandra Thompson

    In my first article, we reviewed several ways to market your practice without spending money on things that clients may like initially, but that will have no long-lasting effect on whether you get their business. One of those great ways to market your practice includes the use of social media, and your ability to use it and embrace it may mean the difference between lags in your practice workload and staying busy.

    The first tip: Identify someone at your firm who will handle social media updates 

    This point is something that is often overlooked and shouldn’t be, and as a matter of fact – it should be the first thing you should consider. Most solo attorneys and small firms don’t have marketing directors to handle this for the firm or attorney. If the person in charge of social media updates is you, make sure you leave time in your schedule each day to review it and do it. If the person in charge is not you, make sure that you provide training and regular oversight to that person, so that you can avoid inappropriate or unprofessional posts. 

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

     This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Anne Harvey

    Young, would-be solo lawyers are an eccentric group—I know, because I used to be one.  The year was 1991 and I couldn’t stand another minute of Big Law. So, I bought my first house, quit an excellent legal job, and started my own practice. I borrowed money, bought an expensive desk and embossed business cards, and I was free.  I’ve been here ever since.

    In retrospect, I was crazy to do what I did.  Fortunately, crazy is a good trait for a person who decides to take on solo legal practice.  I stand by crazy.

    Over the years, I’ve learned that crazy doesn’t stop with success or failure.  I’ve noted the eccentricities of other solo lawyers and discovered a pattern.  Just as law school, undergrad, high school and kindergarten had cliques and politics, the solo bar operates with similar dynamics.  The Breakfast Club has nothing on the personality types I’ve seen. So, in no particular order, here is a discussion of the four classic types of solo practitioners. 

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

     This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Denise Nichols

    For my second contribution to the MyShingle Solos summer series, I was planning to share my story of returning to law school after a 20 year career in the music industry.  But something happened this week that caused me to rethink the direction of this blog.   For the first time in my four years of practicing law, a client fired me and (**gasp**) it was my fault and easily avoidable.

    In my area of practice (transactional entertainment law) it is not entirely foreign for a client to use attorney A’s services one time, and attorney B’s services the next time. It may be that the client prefers the prestige of a “name” firm or attorney (and the client is at a point in their business or career where hiring a prestigious firm or attorney is feasible), or that attorney A does not possess the necessary knowledge and skill to assist the client. I lost a client this week for neither of these reasons; I simply procrastinated my way to being fired.

    The matter for which this particular client sought my services required that I do some research (though it was still solidly within my “wheelhouse”), and I told myself that because it was going to take additional time, I needed to finalize the other matters on my desk and/or wait until I could block enough time to dedicate to this matter.   As anyone who is self-employed knows, your workload ebbs and flows.  Recently – fortunately – I have been in a “flow.”   In fact, my firing could be viewed as timely – I am in the process of forming an of-counsel relationship with an attorney to help with the overflow; and if I had any doubt about doing this, it is now gone.  So, was I busy?  Absolutely.  Extremely so.  But even I don’t buy that excuse.  I procrastinated and I was unresponsive, and I’m not exactly sure why.  My actions essentially “told” my client that they were not important – a client relations cardinal sin.  Simply put, I treated my client disrespectfully.

    As I often do when confronted with a problem or crisis, I searched the Internet, Googling phrases such as “why clients fire attorneys”

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

     This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Adam Sherwin

    Quick: what are the two biggest challenges facing the legal profession today?  Answers will vary, but I am going to guess that many would agree with me on my two choices: 1) lack of legal work for new and unemployed attorneys and 2) a rising demand for affordable legal services.

    For too long, we have treated these problems separately.  Newly graduated and unemployed attorneys usually get the standard career advice for finding legal jobs: network, send out job applications, and volunteer.  Nothing wrong with this, but if such an approach was really successful, we would expect to see more lawyers employed in meaningful jobs, which, unfortunately, is not the case.

    And to deal with the second main problem in the legal profession, our approach typically consists of encouraging overworked attorneys to do more pro bono legal work and support funding for legal aid services.  Again, good steps, but if this were enough, the problem would be solved.

    As a new solo attorney, I’ve become convinced that helping attorneys go solo is the best way to help the legal profession.  Not only would this help hard-working attorneys to find meaning, fulfilling work, it would also expand legal services to those who really need it.

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

    This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger Pamela Williams Kelly

    As promised in my last guest blog post, I will delve into the world of continuing legal education credits (CLEs). In my opinion, these credits are the varied state bar associations’ last attempt to ensure that law school never ends! Just like law school, you come to a CLE with pen and pad in hand. And just like law school—this education is gonna cost you! The fee for a CLE averages around $50 per hour. Multiply that rate by the average annual requirement of 12 CLE hours, and $600 is the grand total on top of the other mandated fees for the “privilege to practice law.”

    But my tale of woe does not apply to all of my colleagues. To my surprise, I just learned that all states do not require CLE! Hawaii, Michigan and Massachusetts are among the states that do not. While several other states, such as California and North Dakota, have 25 and 45 hours of CLE requirements that must be earned over 2 and 3 years, respectively. To learn more about each state’s CLE requirements, you can visit this site.

    My state of licensure is Tennessee; and the state’s CLE requirement is a national average at 12 hours annually plus 3 hours of ethics as well. At $50 per hour, my CLE expense could easily surpass $750. So, what’s a solo to do? For me, the challenge was on! Could I meet my self-imposed annual budget of $100 for CLEs? I’m sure you can guess how this story ends. So, I won’t spoil the ending when I announce….yes, I can and I did. Here’s how:

    This post is part of the MyShingle Solos summer series which will run between June 17 and July 3, 2014. 

    This post is written by MyShingle Guest Blogger T. Michelle Curry

    In 2004, I attended the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. During one of the CLE sessions, we were given free copies of the book “50 Things To Do With The Rest of Your Life” by attorney Robert Pearce Wilkins. The book is a short, easy read (only 88 pages) and I breezed through it on my plane ride back home.  In the book, Wilkins asserts that most people get so caught up with work and daily living that they fail to plan their future and truly enjoy life.  He shares his list of 50 life goals and encourages readers to get started on their own list.  It inspired me to think about my future and honestly changed my life trajectory.

    Back then, time and money constraints prevented me from doing much other than work (you know the routine, I had to pay back those student loans). But I knew I needed a plan to bring some balance into my life.  I had worked with older lawyers who never took time off and seemed not to realize there was life outside the office.  I did not want to end up as that kind of lawyer.  If Wilkins put the bug in my ear, they were the impetus for me to create my “list” and put it in action.  High on my list was/is travel.