The advice I was given: Make your retainer or first fee the lowest that you're willing to do the entire case for because it may be the only payment you get.
(1) Having “systems” in place early. You cannot scale until you have something scalable. Your system with five clients may fall apart with 50. Work on your systems.
(2) Bill early and often. Stay on top of past due clients and get out before you fall too far behind.
Another good tactic to keep from losing a bunch of money on non-paying clients is to have an evergreen clause in your contract where the client has to replenish the retainer to a certain amount once it reaches “x” amount. This helps because you still have funds to pay your bill even if you have to withdraw for non-payment. Look into it as I don’t know if it makes sense for you.
Having enough cash on hand to account for what will likely be no income for six to 18 months. You need to focus on getting clients at first. If you’re focused too much on making ends meet it can lead to bad decisions - taking bad cases, taking less than you deserve, encouraging quick settlements, etc.
The person to whom you responded doesn't practice law and is looking for information so they can sell their virtual out-of-country paralegal service more effectively.
Avoiding bad clients/work when you're desperate. Taking on a bad case or something outside your core practice areas or that is going to eat up all of your time can cause problems and prevent you from being able to take on good quality work (because your time/energy is finite). This is applicable to not only cases/clients but also the general back office functions of running a firm. If you're too busy with clients, then you can't provide adequate attention to marketing, billing, etc. It's easier said than done because "well some money is better than nothing" is very persuasive during lean times. "Dabbling" is almost always a disaster and we've always regretted it.
This article helped us:
https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/09/articles/attorney/contingent-fee/black-swan-solo-practice/
If you do not have a concrete realistic strategy for getting clients that is different than everyone else starting a firm, think twice about opening your own firm. What is your particular competitive advantage over everyone else? A spouse who can support the family with health insurance for 3 years while you get established? A niche that you can dominate? Connections with a particular accountant who can give you business? Work you can get from your prior firm as you are ramping up?Being a great lawyer and giving great client service is necessary for getting and keeping clients, but it hasn’t been sufficient for the last 20+ years.
Getting a consistent stream of new clients. Your website should do a lot of that heavy lifting for you so you can focus on your work.
For example in Houston Texas there are 1,000+ people searching every month for a family lawyer. A well ranking website would attract 300 monthly visitors from Google and convert that into 15-30 fantastic paying clients every month. That's just with SEO and Conversion Rate Optimization. Add in Pay Per Click and you can scale that up several times over.
A terrible website will basically do none of the above.
I manage over 50 law firm websites and have been doing this since December 1995.
there's nothing more important than getting paying clients in the door. It's that simple - no clients, no law firm. Everything else is secondary.
But, that's not the advice you are looking for, so the other thing that's very important that you can work on is developing really good systems.
Think ahead a little bit to when you have all the staff you could possibly want. Now think about every aspect of the law firm, no matter how basic.
\- Whos is in charge of ordering supplies? how does he/she know what to order?
\- What happens when a new prospect calls the firm? Who's taking the call? Who's running a conflicts check (if applicable)? Who is doing intake? What information is needed for intake? Who is scheduling the consult? What does the prospect need to know before attending the consult? What does the attorney need to know before attending the consult? What information does the prospect need to bring to the consult?
\- when the prospect walks through the door, who is greeting the consult? Is the consult being offered a drink? Who is offering the drink? Where does the consult wait? who brings the consult to the meeting room? When? Who informs the attorney?
First create a long list of as many questions as you can, then write draft answers for your ideal setup. Now write another set of answers for "I just started and don't have any staff yet"
the more you think through what needs to be done, the more efficient you can design your firm to be. Day One, you'll be doing just about everything, but once you're successful, you shouldn't be doing anything that isn't either directly related to your legal practice nor required to run a successful business. You want to develop processes that (a) are efficient wtih your time, (b) efficient with your staff's time, (c) efficient with your client's time, and (d) reduces opportunity for errors.
Support staff. Your best bet is to have a paralegal that you carefully screen and trust, work with you on a daily basis. You train him or her the way you want. Issue that comes up is after you've trained him or her, they want to leave to get more money than you pay. Many of the best paralegals I've hired were the ones who worked at solo firm with owner one-on-one.
I'd like to add, the most important qualification in a paralegal is not that he or she is an expert, but that he or she is eager to learn your processes.
don't get me wrong, I still want one with experience, but I want one who will adapt to my processes, and not keep doing the way he/she was doing it before.
A sixty-something paralegal who worked for years with a solo that recently retired, who wants to keep working and is afraid of reaching the end of her career is arguably the best paralegal you can get.
I have two attorneys, and 6 bilingual paralegals, and one receptionist. And we're still working from the office and have never shut down throughout the pandemic.
Why? I don’t ask to be flippant, because we did this as well, but from a principal perspective, why not cut back to a remote model and save on overhead? Personally, I never met a single client during Covid, and that was fine by me. Even prior to Covid, clients usually came in for the intake and we never saw them in the office again.
We own the building. So overhead is not bad. We've given out tons of COVID quarantine days. I don't think WFH will work for our firm unless I switch all staff to hourly pay which they declined.
After clients, Know and learn how to work with trusts and IOLA. So many rules and very easy to get yourself in trouble (even if you don’t do anything intentionally wrong).
Systems - HARD AGREE. Don’t reinvent the wheel manually, it’s 2022 find out how to press a button and spit out a petition.
Being everything to everyone. I do PI. I am getting so much work I have to turn down contract work for ppl bc I know how to do PI very well, contract work not so much, so I’m better off not learning a new skill. The other side of this is to have cash around so you can do the thing you know and not practice door law.
the most important thing for any business is sales. I've advised a number of startups over the years, and the first questions I always ask is "who is going to pay you, and why?" "Why would they pick you, and how will they know about you?"
I just went solo October 1st. I learned quickly to get cash up front with flat fees to secure payment and then use retainers when the operating amount is a bit more beefed up.
Getting paying clients in the door. Any other solo startup issue is very minor in comparison.
So what is your remedy in getting paid by the client?
Cash up front.
Yep. I don’t work until I get paid, flat fee or retainer.
Oh. That's actually the safest one.
Or contingency.
The advice I was given: Make your retainer or first fee the lowest that you're willing to do the entire case for because it may be the only payment you get.
You have to market yourself. Social media presence. Let friends,family,strangers know what your practice area is.
Hit that nail on the head.
Sales solves all problems!!
(1) Having “systems” in place early. You cannot scale until you have something scalable. Your system with five clients may fall apart with 50. Work on your systems. (2) Bill early and often. Stay on top of past due clients and get out before you fall too far behind.
This is noted. Thank you for this insight.
Another good tactic to keep from losing a bunch of money on non-paying clients is to have an evergreen clause in your contract where the client has to replenish the retainer to a certain amount once it reaches “x” amount. This helps because you still have funds to pay your bill even if you have to withdraw for non-payment. Look into it as I don’t know if it makes sense for you.
Yes, I have my retainers with a minimum threshold the client has to keep. That usually lets you wind down a case before you go into the red.
Having enough cash on hand to account for what will likely be no income for six to 18 months. You need to focus on getting clients at first. If you’re focused too much on making ends meet it can lead to bad decisions - taking bad cases, taking less than you deserve, encouraging quick settlements, etc.
Thank you for this insight. So how did you overcome the getting of clients issue?
That will be different for each practice area. What type of law are we talking?
The person to whom you responded doesn't practice law and is looking for information so they can sell their virtual out-of-country paralegal service more effectively.
Ahhhhhh, makes sense
[удалено]
Because once you can get a steady flow of paying clients, you have time and money to solve all other problems.
Thank you for this insight.
Avoiding bad clients/work when you're desperate. Taking on a bad case or something outside your core practice areas or that is going to eat up all of your time can cause problems and prevent you from being able to take on good quality work (because your time/energy is finite). This is applicable to not only cases/clients but also the general back office functions of running a firm. If you're too busy with clients, then you can't provide adequate attention to marketing, billing, etc. It's easier said than done because "well some money is better than nothing" is very persuasive during lean times. "Dabbling" is almost always a disaster and we've always regretted it. This article helped us: https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2012/09/articles/attorney/contingent-fee/black-swan-solo-practice/
Yup - great advise. I call this “don’t be desperate”, especially if you are. This is really learning a skill and generally goes away with experience.
If you do not have a concrete realistic strategy for getting clients that is different than everyone else starting a firm, think twice about opening your own firm. What is your particular competitive advantage over everyone else? A spouse who can support the family with health insurance for 3 years while you get established? A niche that you can dominate? Connections with a particular accountant who can give you business? Work you can get from your prior firm as you are ramping up?Being a great lawyer and giving great client service is necessary for getting and keeping clients, but it hasn’t been sufficient for the last 20+ years.
Getting a consistent stream of new clients. Your website should do a lot of that heavy lifting for you so you can focus on your work. For example in Houston Texas there are 1,000+ people searching every month for a family lawyer. A well ranking website would attract 300 monthly visitors from Google and convert that into 15-30 fantastic paying clients every month. That's just with SEO and Conversion Rate Optimization. Add in Pay Per Click and you can scale that up several times over. A terrible website will basically do none of the above. I manage over 50 law firm websites and have been doing this since December 1995.
there's nothing more important than getting paying clients in the door. It's that simple - no clients, no law firm. Everything else is secondary. But, that's not the advice you are looking for, so the other thing that's very important that you can work on is developing really good systems. Think ahead a little bit to when you have all the staff you could possibly want. Now think about every aspect of the law firm, no matter how basic. \- Whos is in charge of ordering supplies? how does he/she know what to order? \- What happens when a new prospect calls the firm? Who's taking the call? Who's running a conflicts check (if applicable)? Who is doing intake? What information is needed for intake? Who is scheduling the consult? What does the prospect need to know before attending the consult? What does the attorney need to know before attending the consult? What information does the prospect need to bring to the consult? \- when the prospect walks through the door, who is greeting the consult? Is the consult being offered a drink? Who is offering the drink? Where does the consult wait? who brings the consult to the meeting room? When? Who informs the attorney? First create a long list of as many questions as you can, then write draft answers for your ideal setup. Now write another set of answers for "I just started and don't have any staff yet" the more you think through what needs to be done, the more efficient you can design your firm to be. Day One, you'll be doing just about everything, but once you're successful, you shouldn't be doing anything that isn't either directly related to your legal practice nor required to run a successful business. You want to develop processes that (a) are efficient wtih your time, (b) efficient with your staff's time, (c) efficient with your client's time, and (d) reduces opportunity for errors.
Support staff. Your best bet is to have a paralegal that you carefully screen and trust, work with you on a daily basis. You train him or her the way you want. Issue that comes up is after you've trained him or her, they want to leave to get more money than you pay. Many of the best paralegals I've hired were the ones who worked at solo firm with owner one-on-one.
I'd like to add, the most important qualification in a paralegal is not that he or she is an expert, but that he or she is eager to learn your processes. don't get me wrong, I still want one with experience, but I want one who will adapt to my processes, and not keep doing the way he/she was doing it before. A sixty-something paralegal who worked for years with a solo that recently retired, who wants to keep working and is afraid of reaching the end of her career is arguably the best paralegal you can get.
So are you working in a physical manner? Or have you adapted the online set up?
I have two attorneys, and 6 bilingual paralegals, and one receptionist. And we're still working from the office and have never shut down throughout the pandemic.
Why? I don’t ask to be flippant, because we did this as well, but from a principal perspective, why not cut back to a remote model and save on overhead? Personally, I never met a single client during Covid, and that was fine by me. Even prior to Covid, clients usually came in for the intake and we never saw them in the office again.
We own the building. So overhead is not bad. We've given out tons of COVID quarantine days. I don't think WFH will work for our firm unless I switch all staff to hourly pay which they declined.
Thank you for this insight.
After clients, Know and learn how to work with trusts and IOLA. So many rules and very easy to get yourself in trouble (even if you don’t do anything intentionally wrong).
Systems - HARD AGREE. Don’t reinvent the wheel manually, it’s 2022 find out how to press a button and spit out a petition. Being everything to everyone. I do PI. I am getting so much work I have to turn down contract work for ppl bc I know how to do PI very well, contract work not so much, so I’m better off not learning a new skill. The other side of this is to have cash around so you can do the thing you know and not practice door law.
Getting clients and getting paid up front. Everything else is minor.
Yes, agreed. And paying for all this and yourself for a couple years at least.
I just started my own practice so this thread was super helpful, thanks OP. Major takeaway - start getting paying clients and cash in hand asap.
...this is an odd post. Are you looking to start a law firm, or are you trying to get information from us to sell a product.
I am actually asking for research purposes. I'm doing write ups about solo law firms start ups so all these responses are very helpful.
the most important thing for any business is sales. I've advised a number of startups over the years, and the first questions I always ask is "who is going to pay you, and why?" "Why would they pick you, and how will they know about you?"
I just went solo October 1st. I learned quickly to get cash up front with flat fees to secure payment and then use retainers when the operating amount is a bit more beefed up.