Recently in Starting a Law Firm Category

As you expand your firm, you may discover the temptation to structure your operations like one of the top 100 firms, especially if you are a refugee from BigLaw yourself.  It's what you know, after all.

A piece in the June issue of The American Lawyer suggests that the real model for a successful, fulfilling law practice isn't in New York, Chicago or LA - it's in the Rocky Mountains.

While most of the piece is a scathing assessment of BigLaw, the author, Susan Beck takes a moment at the end to extol the virtues of a relatively unknown firm, Holland & Hart LLP.

The folks at FindLaw's Lawyer Marketing Blog have posted an excellent rundown of how to get started on Twitter and incorporate the service into your legal marketing arsenal.  Not only does the post introduce you to Twitter (just in case you've been living in a cave for the past year), it also has a list of Twitter best practices that will help you reach out to potential clients and expand your business.  

Twitter can definitely be a great way to spread the work about you and what you do, but we wouldn't be lawyers if we didn't think about liability, right?  Well, it just so happens that Twitter is starting to generate some interesting legal questions, and a host of practical questions as well.

In this new post-downturn reality of a highly competitive, shrinking legal market, many lawyers have begun to branch out from the traditional methods of running a firm and are exploring strategies widely utilized in the business world to attract new clients, keep the ones they have, and manage their firms more efficiently.

The Wall Street Journal details the steps some firms and attorneys are taking to learn more about business methods and development in a pair of articles today.

After the dismal AmLaw 100 results that came out last month, it's no surprise that things aren't magically looking better for the legal industry.  After being doused with that bucket of iced sewer water, pretty much everyone was expecting 2009 to be a little slow out of the gates.

Still, it's always a little intimidating when numbers come out that confirm dire predictions so resoundingly.

We all know that the job market for lawyers is, how shall we say, not-so-good right now.  But how bad does it have to get before a JD/MBA resorts to taking up the world's oldest profession and becomes a lady of the night? 

Nina C. Baccala decided that the chances of finding work at a law firm were sufficiently low to justify making the switch to prositution.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 1-2 pm PT

Free Telephone Seminar

In these uncertain times preparation equals survival. If you have ever considered starting up your own law practice and plan to make the move soon or if you are afraid that a pink slip might be in your future, you won't want to miss this important seminar. Lawyers are not seasoned in the way of layoffs and are typically caught completely off guard and unprepared without a "plan B" when hit with a pink slip or when their firm goes out of business. California law firms are laying off lawyers by the dozens and the hundreds. You will have a better chance of survival if you are prepared.

This seminar is intended for those attorneys out of work through no fault of their own, as well as for those who anticipate that they might soon be handed a pink slip and for those attorneys who simply want to learn what it takes to start their own solo law practice right now. This excellent presentation qualifies for 1-hour continuing legal education in ethics. This seminar will not teach you how to find a job, instead it will focus on what is involved in starting your own solo law practice.

This post contains links to some blog posts out there with some great information about running your firm.  Whether you're looking for ways to partner with bigger firms, trying to ward off competition or get ahead of the pack with an effective marketing campaing, or trying to determine the substantive direction of your practice, these articles will tell you what you need to know.

Here are the top 5 links this week:

Anyone thinking of starting their own firm after being laid off from a position in BigLaw should read this post in Above the Law. 

In it, Roxana St. Thomas, a laid-off New York lawyer, lists the reasons why she does not, no way, no how, under any circumstances whatsoever want to start her own firm.

Roxana has come up with several compelling (and amusing) justifications for continuing to look for work with a firm rather than hanging out her own shingle..  As always, though, there are counterpoints to every point, and in the end it really comes down to individual goals and abilities.