Yet Another Solo Lawyer Site – from legal aid to solo

I saw a bunch of former colleagues when I went back to the East Coast for a conference. In describing the state of my practice, I told everyone that I have malpractice insurance and a business card, but no clients . . . .

I have a somewhat leisurely marketing plan with regard to clients. I want to practice bankruptcy, debt collection defense, mortgage foreclosure defense, and family law, including juvenile law. So here’s what I’m doing so far: I’m getting involved with the legal aid bankruptcy and senior law clinics. I hope by taking some cases through those clinics, I will build up some positive word of mouth and referrals. I am also in the process of signing up with the bar association’s “modest means” program to take referrals for family law and foreclosure cases. In this program, my hourly rate is set by the client’s income (screened by the bar’s intake staff). I am slowly making contacts, primarily with consumer attorneys, to see if any of them would be a source for referrals. Finally, I am waiting to hear about my application to take court appointments representing parents in dependency cases. While the pay for these court appointments isn’t great, $45 per hour — it has the advantage of being a guaranteed source of cash flow. The disadvantage is that I wouldn’t get paid until the case is closed and these cases typically take months.

So far, I’ve avoided doing an in-depth financial analysis. With my legal services background, I’ve had the luxury of never having to think about cash flow. My plan is to let things build over the next month or two, and then I’ll have a serious sit-down with myself and work out what my monthly costs are and what I need to make to exceed those costs. My modest goal for now until the end of the year is to get at least one paying client so that I don’t totally regret the $480 I spent for malpractice insurance for the rest of 2009.*

I’m planning to keep costs as low as possible. I have the luxury of a small pile of capital from the sale of my house that I can draw on. I have to make sure that I don’t get too lax about that, since that small pile of capital  is also the cornerstone of my retirement plan (such as I have one) and, ideally, I’ll be able to replenish it within a year or two.

Right now, low operating costs mean — I’ve designed my own business cards and website (with plenty of help from my tech-savvy boyfriend). I have no marketing budget yet — so far I’m limiting myself to free on-line marketing, as well as the other strategies outlined above. I’ve inherited a copy/scanner from the aforementioned bf and I’m using my old laptop as well as a spiffy new Acer netbook (cost — $300). I’m using the (free) OpenOffice suite rather than MS Office, and bf is also building me a database that will function as my case management and timekeeping software. I’m using GoogleCalendar plus Mozilla’s Sunbird for my on-line calendaring — with this system, I’m able to sync my calendar across both computers as well as my smartphone. I’m using Dropbox (free) to store and sync my work files across the two computers. I’m also using Mozilla‘s Thunderbird for my email manager (an email address comes with my domain name), although I haven’t figured out how to sync that across the computers with actually setting up some sort of network.

I’m using GoogleVoice and my cell phone for phone services and signed up with TrustFax for about $5.00 per month for online fax service. I’ve found a fabulous law library about 20 minutes from my home that has an impressive array of reference books, as well as free Westlaw and Lexis access. I’ve indulged in a couple of luxuries — the netbook certainly wasn’t necessary (but it was cheap), nor was the conference back East or all the NCLC manuals I bought (at a deep discount), nor did I need to upgrade my regular phone to a smartphone . . . .

Speaking of  superfluous spending was planning on working out of my home and using rented conference/meeting spaces for client meetings, but I’ve stumbled across a couple of really cheap ($200/month) office rental situations. Of course, at that price, neither is ideal, but both have their pluses. I’ll probably make a decision about that in the next couple of weeks.

So that’s where I’m at.

*Oregon is relatively unique in that, not only does it require its attorneys to carry malpractice, it requires attorneys to obtain it through a single carrier — the Oregon Professional Liability Fund. I probably could have held off on taking paying clients until next year, since most of the pro bono work is covered by PLF, but hey, I need the challenge.