Dear Family Law Lawyer:
What’s the best way to avoid premature bankruptcy? I need your help.
Signed,
Desperate
Dear Desperate:
Your question is something that we have all gone through at one time or another. After practicing for many years, we have a tendency to forget how difficult it is to actually generate business and be successful in this profession.
With that thought in mind, I solicited other responses, and hopefully our collective thought process will assist you in some fashion.
The following ideas are not all-inclusive but hopefully they will be helpful. Please keep in mind this is an on-going process for your entire professional career.
1) Try to keep your overhead as low as possible, but sometimes that can be self-defeating. You may have to make an initial investment for advertising, websites, etc. to get your name out to the community. At minimum, take out a yellow page ad in the general portion and the specialty portion of the telephone book.
In addition, although many practitioners do their own work, it can be disruptive to do all the administrative items yourself.
2) Give some thought to packaging your services in a non-traditional fashion, such as offering unbundled legal services.
3) Even though you probably feel desperate for clients, be careful which cases you agree to take on. If you feel it’s a bad idea to take a certain client when their expectations are completely unrealistic or they have been through two to three other attorneys and they are upset, then it’s probably not a good investment on your part. That is the type of case that you will lose money on and which will result in further frustrations.
4) Do not underestimate your abilities—charge appropriately and bill on a regular basis. You can always make adjustments to your time and billing if you wish, but show your clients what efforts you put in on their behalf; and show them that you did in fact make some adjustments if that’s what you wish to do.
Keep in mind that if a client feels they have taken advantage of you financially, then that client will refer you other clients who will have the same expectation. That type of practice will certainly cause you to be less than successful.
5) Attend law office management seminars.
6) As part of your practice, learn client control and do not get the attitude that you need to win at any cost. Do not get a reputation that you are the most difficult person in the county because referrals, first of all, will not be given to you and secondly, others lawyers will never cooperate with you when you do need a continuance or anything that can be accomplished by stipulation. Learn to control client’s unreasonable expectations.
7) It is very important that you collect appropriate fees based on anticipated time involved in your representation of the client. You need to acquire a perception of self-worth and a concept of how valuable you are to this client. If you do not achieve that, then it will be very difficult for you to ask people for thousands of dollars to represent them and it will be even more difficult for you to collect any money after the work has been completed. You need to learn to say “no” if it’s appropriate and you need to learn to firmly collect for the time expended.
8) If you are not getting the proper results from each client in your collection efforts, you need to learn to immediately remove yourself from further representation of that client. That is a difficult task, but it’s imperative if you wish to be successful in your practice.
9) You need to establish a good relationship with your banker. You need to try to establish a line of credit to be used only if absolutely necessary because there will be times in all of our careers where that is in fact necessary. There will be slow months that you need to get through, and it’s important that you don’t get frustrated to the point that you give up.
10) If at all possible, try to put yourself in a situation where expenses are shared, e.g., either by going into an arrangement with other individuals that will share the rent, office staff (including receptionist) or finding an appropriate established organization and renting minimal space from that organization.
11) Until you build up your practice, also consider doing contract work for other law firms. Talk to all the lawyers in the practice area you are interested in and tell them you are willing to work at a lower hourly rate to assist them with cases on a temporary basis. This will give you more experience, and it will get you into the door of firms with instant referrals.
Lastly, it takes time to develop a good practice, it takes time to develop good clients, it takes time to learn the concepts that I have discussed. Instant gratification is possible but not probable, and that has to be recognized.
We presented other ideas in the December 2004 issue of De Novo that also may be of assistance. Good luck in your professional endeavors.
If you have a question you want answered in this column, send it to: “Dear Family Law Lawyer” WSBA Family Law Section, 2101 Fourth Avenue, Suite 400, Seattle, Washington 98121-2330.
“Dear Family Law Lawyer” is prepared for De Novo by the Family Law Section of the WSBA. Nothing in this column is an official opinion of the Family Law Section. To learn more, or to join the Family Law Section, please visit www.wsba.org/lawyers/groups/familylaw.
