Solo Law Practitioners
Solo law practitioners make up an enormous percentage of legal firms, something close to 50%. It is easy owning a law firm, which allows building the perfect work balance. Whether you have just qualified or you break away from the firm you currently work with, the most useful business hint for a solo law practitioner is to go at it alone.
Business Hints for Solo Law Practitioners
Therefore, starting a solo law practice can be tough, when you are starting from scratch. Essentially, it is the business side of things that might let you down. Your legal training has taught you a lot, but you will struggle with the nuts and bolts of running a small company. Here are some of the problems you might encounter, unless you have combined it with learning business skills.
Find the Right Time
Use your real name as the company name when you are choosing a name for your business. This is important and it is standard practice in the legal field for a solo law practitioner. This will help you find new clients, when no one knows who you are. The simple fact is when you strike out on your own, no one will be looking for you. What they will be looking for is family law or an accident attorney.
Find the Right Advisors
As mentioned above, while you have excelled in learning useful business hints about the law, it is vital that you find the right people to support you, such as an executive coach. They are advisors, who will help you and develop a strategy to grow your firm. Make use of contacts within the legal industry who have experience of building up a solo practice. Going at it alone does not mean failing to ask for help when you need it.
Stay Lean
One of the things you will learn fast is that without money, you won’t last long. It is critical to keep your costs down when you are just getting started as solo law practitioner. Stay as lean as you possibly can and start your practice from a home office. Use Skype, instead of a traditional and expensive phone line. Stop using paper for file sharing and use services like Dropbox instead. The leaner you are, the better chance you have of survival to remove extortionate rental costs.
Get Your Name Out There
Finally, as a solo law practitioner, it is vital to find new clients and attract new prospects. While it is easy to overspend on marketing, there are useful business hints to get started. Focus on your particular niche to be diligent and smart with the decisions you make. Get flyers and business cards and leave them in places that clients frequent. You can get a basic website, so use it to provide helpful information for your audience. Good luck with the new practice, you will get there!