My website just went up and now I am in the process of making sure it ranks well on google. So I find myself playing the link game. I have asked friends for links but I am also trying to create and tie all my links together.
Incoming links are a valuable source of rank for google searches and I am hoping a high rank in google search will proviude a few clients. If not I am only out my time, but if it works out it will be a good return.
There are alot of smart blogs and books on the subject so I would recomend you reading their stuff. Right now I am digging through every directory I find to post my law office in. Chacking local city, chamber of commerce, and familt law directories have all provided a few.
I am also working on trying to spiderweb the links I control. Facebook, my blogs and sites like Digg.com all offer ways to build up links. I have been taking the time to create accounts and set up links between everything.
With computers so much more available than years ago a website can offer a valuable marketing tool, but only if people can find it. Taking the tiem to make sure your site is findable should pay off.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Friends
When I first started to look at the possibility of starting my own practice I got hung up on looking at what I could do to get started. THe more I thought about it the more I realized I would need help so I decided to tap into an amazing resource in the people I know.
I asked friends who worked in law offices as legal assistancts and paralegals about office procedures. I got advice on file management and what programs each person liked. As an attorney ity is easy to get stuck on handling legal work and relying on others to handle details.
I went to a law school that had a large group of students who were starting new careers. I had a friend from school who was an accountant before law school. He offered alot of valuable advice in accounting areas that knew very little about.
My wife contributed alot also. She was a computer programmer for Apple for 10 years and had experience with Dreamweaver and website design. She did the reading to catch up on programming and designed my website and made sure it was search engine optimized.
Professors from law school were very helpful also. I tried writing misc. attorneys hoping to meet some but was ignored for the most part. At least professors remembered me and were willing to sit down and give me some advice.
I also had friends help make recommendations about offices in buildings they worked and about places to look for used furniture from businesses they knew went under recently. I had a few friends come down and help me set up furniture they day it all got delivered. Getting a little extra muscle with a 400 pound desk was a must.
When starting a new firm I found it important to rely on alot of people. There were alot of new things for me to figure out and I was amazed how much people were willing to help out. You may have to put in the hours and hard work to get your lawfirm off the ground, but you might as well work smarter and get some advice and help from friends and family.
I asked friends who worked in law offices as legal assistancts and paralegals about office procedures. I got advice on file management and what programs each person liked. As an attorney ity is easy to get stuck on handling legal work and relying on others to handle details.
I went to a law school that had a large group of students who were starting new careers. I had a friend from school who was an accountant before law school. He offered alot of valuable advice in accounting areas that knew very little about.
My wife contributed alot also. She was a computer programmer for Apple for 10 years and had experience with Dreamweaver and website design. She did the reading to catch up on programming and designed my website and made sure it was search engine optimized.
Professors from law school were very helpful also. I tried writing misc. attorneys hoping to meet some but was ignored for the most part. At least professors remembered me and were willing to sit down and give me some advice.
I also had friends help make recommendations about offices in buildings they worked and about places to look for used furniture from businesses they knew went under recently. I had a few friends come down and help me set up furniture they day it all got delivered. Getting a little extra muscle with a 400 pound desk was a must.
When starting a new firm I found it important to rely on alot of people. There were alot of new things for me to figure out and I was amazed how much people were willing to help out. You may have to put in the hours and hard work to get your lawfirm off the ground, but you might as well work smarter and get some advice and help from friends and family.
Costs
So I am going to list my start up costs. I could have limited alot of these but I hoping spending a little extra helps my progress a little.
Website design: $500.00 and alot of my wife's time. It was expensive but this is somewheres I saved alot of money for what I have being developed. It seems most attorneys use FIndlaw.com or a similar service. My wife Rachel is pretty handy with computers so she volunteered to read up and design a website for me. It costs us $400 for dreamweaver and $100.00 for a HTML book, Dreamweaver book and search engine optimization. This costs will likely go up once I start making sure the website shows up on the search engines well.
Office Rental: $900 a month. With NNN and everything else I ended up with a 700 square foot office. I could have gotten a smaller office cheaper but this one seemed to work perfect for me. I plan on offering mediation so I needed a conference table and my wife and kiddo will be in the office so a bigger-private office worked out well.
Furniture: $2000.00. This is somewheres I splurged a little. I could have saved some money buying used furniture or less expensive furniture, but I figure these are long term investments. A conference table, chairs, desks, carpets, bookshelves and a few end tables all added up cost wise but really made my office look very professional.
Business Cards: $50 to start off. My wife created great custom cards for me with Adobe Illustrator. I was really happy with this, and I will see how long it takes me to give out the 500 I bought.
Malpractice Insurance $500 first year. I used a deal set up by the California BAR association for first year attorneys.
Advertising and Marketing: undetermined at this point. I have spent a few dollars here signing up for the local Chamber of Commerce and other things. I have lookedat the cost of yellowpages and other ads but I have not signed up for any of them yet. I am sure this is something that I will spend more time and money figuring out the next few months.
Book and Research: $600. OK so this is something else I splurged on a little. I am a family law attorney so I bought the Rutgers Group family law books and a book on forms. As far as legal research I used OnLAW. The California BAR Association had an offer that gave away OnLAW for free for one year to new attorneys so I took advantage of this. I will see in a year if I want to change to Westlaw or Lexis but I will take advantage of a free year of online research.
Utilities: $200 a month. This covers phone, gas, electric and internet in my office.
Computers and programs: $300. I already had a computer so that was one cost I avoided. I started pretty minimal for programs and only bought Quickbooks and a tax program. A law school firnd of mine was an accountant before law schhol so I relied on him a bit getting everything set up. I looked at Abacus and other billing and fileing programs but decided to skip the costs.
Business Books: $150.00. I will mention this because I bought so many. I really wanted to know what I was getting into so I bought alot of business and marketing books. I will post an article someday listing all the books I bought, but using Amazon and buying most of them used I saved alot of money.
Office Supplies: I spent $200.00 to srat up and have not come up with a monthly dollar amount for this yet. As the next few months go on I am sure I will get a more consistant number but I used alot of stuff I had laying around the house to start up. It could have gotten more expensive if I bought everything from scratch.
Alot of costs I did not mention because they were just life expenses for me. My cel phone I had already. I bought a few new suits but those were not really necessary costs. I also signed up for $1200 mediation training course. It seems the amount you spend could be unlimited.
I choose to splurge getting my office set up and conserve on advertising and other things I would get a better feel for as my practice has been up an running for a few months. I talked to a few friends who run their own practices and constantly ran into the idea of image. I really wanted to feel liek a real business and attorney from the start so I spent alot more than I needed to. I am hoping the extra costs
pay off. IF you have a tighter budget you could start much cheaper than I did.
Website design: $500.00 and alot of my wife's time. It was expensive but this is somewheres I saved alot of money for what I have being developed. It seems most attorneys use FIndlaw.com or a similar service. My wife Rachel is pretty handy with computers so she volunteered to read up and design a website for me. It costs us $400 for dreamweaver and $100.00 for a HTML book, Dreamweaver book and search engine optimization. This costs will likely go up once I start making sure the website shows up on the search engines well.
Office Rental: $900 a month. With NNN and everything else I ended up with a 700 square foot office. I could have gotten a smaller office cheaper but this one seemed to work perfect for me. I plan on offering mediation so I needed a conference table and my wife and kiddo will be in the office so a bigger-private office worked out well.
Furniture: $2000.00. This is somewheres I splurged a little. I could have saved some money buying used furniture or less expensive furniture, but I figure these are long term investments. A conference table, chairs, desks, carpets, bookshelves and a few end tables all added up cost wise but really made my office look very professional.
Business Cards: $50 to start off. My wife created great custom cards for me with Adobe Illustrator. I was really happy with this, and I will see how long it takes me to give out the 500 I bought.
Malpractice Insurance $500 first year. I used a deal set up by the California BAR association for first year attorneys.
Advertising and Marketing: undetermined at this point. I have spent a few dollars here signing up for the local Chamber of Commerce and other things. I have lookedat the cost of yellowpages and other ads but I have not signed up for any of them yet. I am sure this is something that I will spend more time and money figuring out the next few months.
Book and Research: $600. OK so this is something else I splurged on a little. I am a family law attorney so I bought the Rutgers Group family law books and a book on forms. As far as legal research I used OnLAW. The California BAR Association had an offer that gave away OnLAW for free for one year to new attorneys so I took advantage of this. I will see in a year if I want to change to Westlaw or Lexis but I will take advantage of a free year of online research.
Utilities: $200 a month. This covers phone, gas, electric and internet in my office.
Computers and programs: $300. I already had a computer so that was one cost I avoided. I started pretty minimal for programs and only bought Quickbooks and a tax program. A law school firnd of mine was an accountant before law schhol so I relied on him a bit getting everything set up. I looked at Abacus and other billing and fileing programs but decided to skip the costs.
Business Books: $150.00. I will mention this because I bought so many. I really wanted to know what I was getting into so I bought alot of business and marketing books. I will post an article someday listing all the books I bought, but using Amazon and buying most of them used I saved alot of money.
Office Supplies: I spent $200.00 to srat up and have not come up with a monthly dollar amount for this yet. As the next few months go on I am sure I will get a more consistant number but I used alot of stuff I had laying around the house to start up. It could have gotten more expensive if I bought everything from scratch.
Alot of costs I did not mention because they were just life expenses for me. My cel phone I had already. I bought a few new suits but those were not really necessary costs. I also signed up for $1200 mediation training course. It seems the amount you spend could be unlimited.
I choose to splurge getting my office set up and conserve on advertising and other things I would get a better feel for as my practice has been up an running for a few months. I talked to a few friends who run their own practices and constantly ran into the idea of image. I really wanted to feel liek a real business and attorney from the start so I spent alot more than I needed to. I am hoping the extra costs
pay off. IF you have a tighter budget you could start much cheaper than I did.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Running a Business Compared to being an Employee
I found out quickly that running a solo practice was much different than just being an attorney. In addition to being an attorney I have had to research and learn what it means to run a business. Accounting, marketing, admistrative and office work, and all the details needed just to open a business were all overwhelming.
Simple law office tasks like managing files meant I had to develop a process to open and close files, arrange buying the office supplies needed deciding how I wanted to label and organize files. In addition I had to make sure I had everything from client intake forms to fee agreements ready.
Accounting took on a whole new meaning too. I had to figure out how much to charge hourly and look at programs to track my hours. As an attorney you will be provided with procedures to handle billing and you just get an hourly rate or salary for the hours you put in. Now I have to figure out how many hours of unbillable work I have to do a work and how much I have to bill to be able to pay my bills.
Probably the most challenging aspect of running a business for me is marketing. The idea of networking and trying to get referrals was eye opening. I went to law school with the intention of working at the D.A.'s office so I never wanted to deal with marketing. The subject of marketing was so involved for me that I will write an arctle on it at some point soon. I will also include a list of really great books I had recommended and read on the subject.
If you are an attorney thinking about starting a solo practice it is important to make sure you know what you are getting into. We all have a passion for helping people or we would not being attorneys, but running a business offered many challenges I was not ready for until I started reading and asking friends for advice.
Simple law office tasks like managing files meant I had to develop a process to open and close files, arrange buying the office supplies needed deciding how I wanted to label and organize files. In addition I had to make sure I had everything from client intake forms to fee agreements ready.
Accounting took on a whole new meaning too. I had to figure out how much to charge hourly and look at programs to track my hours. As an attorney you will be provided with procedures to handle billing and you just get an hourly rate or salary for the hours you put in. Now I have to figure out how many hours of unbillable work I have to do a work and how much I have to bill to be able to pay my bills.
Probably the most challenging aspect of running a business for me is marketing. The idea of networking and trying to get referrals was eye opening. I went to law school with the intention of working at the D.A.'s office so I never wanted to deal with marketing. The subject of marketing was so involved for me that I will write an arctle on it at some point soon. I will also include a list of really great books I had recommended and read on the subject.
If you are an attorney thinking about starting a solo practice it is important to make sure you know what you are getting into. We all have a passion for helping people or we would not being attorneys, but running a business offered many challenges I was not ready for until I started reading and asking friends for advice.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Office or Working at Home to Start
One of the first decisions I had to make starting a solo practice was to start with an office or working out of my home. I had already decided I would practice Family Law so meeting clients would be necessary. If I had chosen another area of law where meeting clients would not have been so important I would have likely started out working from home.
The proposition of working at home has become much more viable for attorneys. Computers, online research and other technology and has made it possible to provide the same quality of legal work from home that was only possible from the office.
I went back and forth in my head. What would prospective clients think of an attorney who did not even have an office. On the other hand, money would be tight the first few months and I probably will not meet alot of prospective clients.
I ended up deciding I would work out of my home if I could make an arrangement to rent a conference room by the hour. I figured a conference room in an office building or another attorney's office would allow me to maintain a level of professionalism and manage my budget.
I tried Craigslist and looking through the local newspapers and could not find anything in the Santa Cruz area. There were numerous virtual offices and arrangements that would suit my needs in San Jose, but it appears the idea has not caught on in Santa Cruz.
Without being able to find a place to meet clients the idea of working at home fizzled out. Image and professionalism are so important for success as an attorney. I knew meeting clients in my living room would chase off potential clients. SO I started office shopping and realized that an office would cost about 5 billable hours a month. Without a place to meet clients I would probably have lost more than 5 billable hours a month.
My dream as an attorney has always been to run my own office. I chose an office over starting at home because I could not find accomodations in the Santa Cruz area that I felt would allow me to work from home and still have the best chance of long term success. THe money I spent on an office could have been used to advertise, but what good are prospective clients without a place to meet them.
Any attorney looking to start their own practice should at least consider the possibility of working at home. For me it wasn't a viable option in Santa Cruz but it may be more common in larger cities.
The proposition of working at home has become much more viable for attorneys. Computers, online research and other technology and has made it possible to provide the same quality of legal work from home that was only possible from the office.
I went back and forth in my head. What would prospective clients think of an attorney who did not even have an office. On the other hand, money would be tight the first few months and I probably will not meet alot of prospective clients.
I ended up deciding I would work out of my home if I could make an arrangement to rent a conference room by the hour. I figured a conference room in an office building or another attorney's office would allow me to maintain a level of professionalism and manage my budget.
I tried Craigslist and looking through the local newspapers and could not find anything in the Santa Cruz area. There were numerous virtual offices and arrangements that would suit my needs in San Jose, but it appears the idea has not caught on in Santa Cruz.
Without being able to find a place to meet clients the idea of working at home fizzled out. Image and professionalism are so important for success as an attorney. I knew meeting clients in my living room would chase off potential clients. SO I started office shopping and realized that an office would cost about 5 billable hours a month. Without a place to meet clients I would probably have lost more than 5 billable hours a month.
My dream as an attorney has always been to run my own office. I chose an office over starting at home because I could not find accomodations in the Santa Cruz area that I felt would allow me to work from home and still have the best chance of long term success. THe money I spent on an office could have been used to advertise, but what good are prospective clients without a place to meet them.
Any attorney looking to start their own practice should at least consider the possibility of working at home. For me it wasn't a viable option in Santa Cruz but it may be more common in larger cities.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Getting Everything Ready
So I have made the decision to start my own solo practice. As an attorney I always knew I would start my own practice but this is just a bit sooner than I had planned. I just passed the BAR and had hoped to get a few years of experience first, but jobs are hard to find so it bumped my schedule up a little.
I live in the Santa Cruz and I have decided to focus my practice on family law. It is odd that I never wanted to practice family law after seeing how devestating the outcomes can be. The reasons I wanted to avoid family law are now the reasons I want to practice it. Seeing people go through divorce without an attorney or with an attorney that poorly prepared them for the real life effects of divorce made me want to try and offer a more complete service to my clients.
I will create posts about the choices I have made from choosing an office and setting up procedure and marketing. The business aspects and marketing are more intimidating to me right now that being an attorney, but the more I have read and prepared the more confident I have gotten. There are so many good books and online resources to help attorneys open their own office that I feel I am taking the right steps to succeed.
I live in the Santa Cruz and I have decided to focus my practice on family law. It is odd that I never wanted to practice family law after seeing how devestating the outcomes can be. The reasons I wanted to avoid family law are now the reasons I want to practice it. Seeing people go through divorce without an attorney or with an attorney that poorly prepared them for the real life effects of divorce made me want to try and offer a more complete service to my clients.
I will create posts about the choices I have made from choosing an office and setting up procedure and marketing. The business aspects and marketing are more intimidating to me right now that being an attorney, but the more I have read and prepared the more confident I have gotten. There are so many good books and online resources to help attorneys open their own office that I feel I am taking the right steps to succeed.
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