This post is a quick follow up to Would You Rent Office Space for $500 or Less? which has generated some useful feedback from other solos weighing in with personal experiences and opinions.  While you should read the comments directly, they generally fall into the following clusters of viewpoints:

  • 1. Don’t start a firm unless you can afford the space:  This group splits into two strains of argument. One group simply argues that lawyers who pony up the cost of starting a firm are going to have skin in the game and therefore, be more motivated to see it through to success. Others in the “don’t start without an office” group assert that it’s foolish or even unethical to start a law firm if you’re undercapitalized – and that lawyers who can’t afford space should save up enough before they start or do something else.
  • 2. Wish I’d gotten space sooner/would rent if I could  This group sees a value to office space as a way to grow a practice or expand opportunities. Some in this group wish they’d rented space earlier while others are growing but still searching for cost effective office solutions.
  • 3. Don’t need space at all   This group has found success without space and/or doesn’t want it due to avoid long commute or allow more flexibility.

Now, for my observations:

[Note – this is a long read, and it’s about much more than the home vs. office debate but rather, the importance of affordable office space to the sustainability of solos and long term access to justice]

Fishtown Lawyer Jordan Rushie makes some strong arguments in favor of renting office space when starting a firm.  As Jordan explains, office space gives lawyers a presence in the community and an opportunity to open up that space to local businesses that might become clients. An office also imposes discipline and routine, and can make lawyers feel more like business owners rather than unemployed or self-employed – and therefore, increases the chances of success.

Jordan’s not imagining this either; the stats back him up. As I’ve written previously, studies show that lawyers who work in office or office share environments earn more than their home-office counter parts.  And based on my own experience and observations, those solos and smalls who have some kind of dedicated office space generally tend to have more sustainable practices that they’ve grown beyond one lawyer than those who continue to work from home (the exception being lawyers who have bonafide national practices and spend large amounts of time traveling to other locations and therefore, have no need for a real space).

But here’s my beef with Jordan’s post and others like it: they suggest that if lawyers don’t start out with an office, then at best, they’re destined to fail and at worst, are either frauds or losers.  And that’s just not so.  Rather, many lawyers simply can’t justify the cost of an office starting out and conserve their resources for other priorities.

When it comes to technology, lawyers are no different from the general public — gravitating towards the free and easy, no-brainer products like gmail or dropbox. Yet often, these tools aren’t necessarily optimal security-wise for serving clients.  But rather than scold or deride lawyers who use these tools, most of the speakers at this past…


This year, I came to ABA Techshow intending to cover the latest and greatest tech tools and trends for MyShingle. I walked the exhibit hall yesterday, dutifully sitting through demo after demo of ipad deposition tools along with dozens of cloud-based practice management tools and portals until my brain went cloudy with all of it.  …

The ABA Journal reports on a new practice trend for lawyers: acting as  privilege shield. As hacker attacks increase, companies are turning to lawyers to assist with initial investigations. While presumably lawyers bring substantive knowledge to the table and can help companies assess potential liability, they offer an even more valuable benefit: privilege.  Many companies want to protect internal investigations of a data breach from use in subsequent litigation – but that information may be more easily discoverable if a company relies solely on a forensics company to assist in post-breach diligence.

The ABA article references several big firms that are branching out into the privilege shield area. But there’s no reason that solos and small couldn’t replicate this practice area.  After all, many small and mid-sized companies are hacked also – and would benefit both from a privilege shield as well as legal advice on how to minimize liability.  Solos and smalls have an advantage over their big law colleagues too:  because companies will already have to shell out significant dollars for forensics experts, they may want to limit what they pay for legal advice as well.

Marketing this type of service isn’t difficult either, because lawyers can pitch vendors as well as the ultimate client. A firm could create a webinar series to educate vendors on the law of data breach or the importance of having an attorney on the team. If the vendor is impressed, it could refer the lawyer to its clients or offer some type of packaged service (so long as its structured to avoid fee splitting). You might also approach vendors directly and offer a proposal for teaming up – an API so to speak.

Sometime in the wake of 9-11, when the Blackberry was the focus of so many stories, I asked several of my solo colleagues whether they thought they’d ever use one in their practice. At the time, Blackberrys were becoming standard for large firm and and corporate employees, but they hadn’t made their way down the…

My co-author Nicole Black and I will be at TechShow this year, and as in past years, we’ve organized a dinner for Friday, April 5, to get together with our online colleagues and friends whom we’ve never met or don’t have a chance to see very often in person.  If you’d like to attend, there’s…

According to Techcrunch, Yelp, an online customer feedback site has announced a new feature that will help small business owners quantify the value of their Yelp listing.  To estimate a listing’s worth, Yelp examines customer leads like bookmarking a Yelp business listing, mapping directions to the business, placing a phone call from the Yelp app, purchasing a Yelp deal, making an OpenTable reservation, and more.  Then, using an expert report, Yelp estimates the average value of the lead.  Multiplying total leads by average value of each lead approximates the amount of revenue that the business derives from Yelp.

Even though Yelp’s estimates are rough cut, it’s easy to see their value. First and most obviously, Yelp helps business owners understand the impact that Yelp has on their business. Second – and perhaps more importantly, Yelp can help companies diagnose where they’re losing business. If a business’ revenue falls short of Yelp’s prediction, a business owner can review the figures and try to figure out why (maybe the map instructions are inaccurate, maybe the person answering the phone is rude).

Yelp provides this data to users at no charge – even though the site is free to use. By contrast, many lawyers spend hundreds, even thousand dollars on online listings and lead generators – yet most of these sites don’t track leads for lawyers as Yelp does, and those that do (like Avvo’s Ignite) charges for the service (though Avvo’s listings itself and other sites monitored are free).

Via Scott Greenfield, I learned about this recent study by the Illinois State Bar Association on
The Impact of Law School Debt on the Legal Profession. Whether or not one blames the debt crisis on law schools (for inflating employment results), the government (for essentially prohibiting discharge of student loans in bankruptcy except in very narrow circumstances), private lenders (for making cash so readily available) or law students (for failing to engage in adequate due diligence before signing up for $200k worth of loans)  there’s no question that the crushing debt burden threatens the foundations of the justice system.

For example, the ISBA report notes that with heavy debt burdens, many top grads can’t afford to accept public interest positions – and even if they’re willing to take a public interest job for a few years, they’ve got to earn enough not just to pay down their own debt, but to save enough to cover their children’s eventual tuition costs.  Of course, the impact of debt on public interest jobs is nothing new though; even back in my day (Class of 1988), many students with loans made the same choices.

The more significant problem is debt’s impact on the ability of lawyers to start or more importantly run sustainable solo or small firm practices. As the ISBA report points out, more new grads as well as experienced attorneys are, by choice or default, opting for solo practice because of the non-existent legal job market. From the Report:
The number of new graduates entering solo practice has increased from 2.8% to 6% between 2007 and 2011. Many more enter solo practice after several years of unemployment or underemployment. Because of their debt loads, however, these attorneys are unable to adequately finance a new law practice. As a result, most struggle, and many consider leaving the law if they are unable to move on to other jobs. This group is also more likely to commit ethics violations and to be the target of malpractice suits….The Special Committee heard much anecdotal evidence suggesting that attorneys with heavy debt loads may be more likely to commit ethics violations. The greatest pressures are on solo practitioners, who may take work beyond their level of competency, face financial pressures to prolong litigation, or terminate a representation inappropriately if a client has difficulty paying. Evidence from the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission does not yet show an increase in ethics violations among lawyers with heavy debt loads. Nonetheless, this data may be a lagging indicator of a problem that is already developing.
Does the ISBA report raise valid concerns about the stability of solo practice? Absolutely. Nor are these concerns new.  Commentators have described the adverse impact of financial pressures on solos’ abilities to competently and ethically serve clients since the 1950s and 1960s – and I’ve expressed my own worries  about the sustainability of new business models like fully virtual law practices delivering unbundled services.  Yes, legal services should be more affordable, but there’s only so little that solo and small firm lawyers can charge before they go out of business, or compromise service to clients. And since most solos and small firms serve middle income individuals, a decline in the quality of service undermines the integrity of our justice system.

Having said that, I take issue with the ISBA’s perception of solo practice. While I’ll concede that financial difficulties may cause solo and small firm lawyers to cut corners, I don’t believe that there’s a higher rate of unethical conduct by solos and smalls in economic downturn than across the board in the profession.  There are plenty of instances of big firm lawyers overbilling or skimming money from client accounts (and my guess is that many of these incidents never making it into ethics reporters because the firms quietly settle the accounts and don’t report the misconduct). There’s no need for the ISBA report to taint solos, particularly when any “evidence” of misconduct is admittedly anecdotal.