How fast and how much you grow also depends on what the attorney envisions as the goal for their practice. Right now I actually put a cap on expanding my practice because my children are young and I have other responsibilities besides my career that take precedence. I work with other virtual law offices that are opened as a way to ease out of their firms and into a slower paced solo practice. It just depends. Personally, I have a strategy in my ever-changing business plan to increase my hours and business when my kids start attending school longer. In the meantime I am focused on building my reputation of providing individualized online attention to parents, especially parents with special needs children, who need estate planning. A lot of this is more through client referrals but that’s because I’m choosing not to invest in the expense of online advertising right now.

I will agree with Carolyn that for solos we can’t focus strictly on unbundling legal forms, but will have to create more niche practices with unique services and build our reputations on those. We would drive ourselves into the ground attempting to compete with these new “branded networks” of online legal services (Rocket Lawyer being the newest one) and the increasing number of solos themselves opening VLOs with similar practice areas. The marketplace is going to demand a hybrid of unbundled services with full-service or unique niche services in order for solos to survive if they want to deliver legal services online. You seem to get this, Rachel, by providing great education content for your prospective clients through blogging.

Another option for growth for solos might be to consider forming networks of VLOs that pool resources but retain the independence of the solo practice. I’m not talking about a VLP or Rimon Law model, but a network of solo practitioners within a state. I’m working up a plan for this and will probably write about it on in the virtual law practice course blog soon.

As always, Rachel, you write a good thought-provoking post.

I’m still an undergrad, my parents don’t help me, I don’t earn more than a typical undergrad with a full time job, and I pay it all out of pocket. The way I do it is by outsourcing tasks like SEO writing to develop backlinks to my website, design and lead conversion optimization, and direct phone sales campaigns to other countries.

You can get employee’s to do great work at really affordable rates on sites like http://www.odesk.com and http://www.scriptlance.com.

I also have a fax line for less than $6.00 per month. https://www.fax87.com/get-started/

I have website hosting for less than $72 per year from http://www.fatcow.com

I purchased a pre-designed website template from http://www.themeforest.com for $45.00.

I get email marketing for free from http://www.mailchimp.com

I use a free virtual phone from google.com/voice which redirects to my cell phone.

I get my design done odesk.com for $10-$15 to design logo’s and business cards.

There’s lot’s of ways to scale, and often the most effective methods are on the path less traveled. I can run a business from my bedroom for less than $300 for the first year. If I choose to, I can employ people oversea’s to answer my phones, respond to email, and sell my company’s services for less than $700 per month.

I agree growth is imperative, but the money required to employ solid people oversea’s is small, the only challenge is taking time to interview all the people that don’t fit with your standards.

Thanks for this thoughtful and very balanced piece. There is much to be said for starting small and bootstrapping. The days of the venture capitalists writing million dollar checks to college students with no business plan are gone, as are the days (well before your time!) where lawyers believed that you couldn’t start a firm without a $30,000 lease, a secretary and an associate.
But much as working largely from home served me well when my kids were small, I do believe that there are many benefits to having a formal work space – either in one’s home (I’ve known several lawyers with full, multi-room offices in their basements) or outside – where you can have people work or have colleagues come to hang out. When I had office space, I always had law students working for me, and they got a lot done for not very much. Plus, when you have the bandwidth in place, you come up with ways to use it. I often hosted lunches in my office space for colleagues, or assigned students to work on pro bono cases or marketing matters. When you rely on contract labor, psychologically, I think that you are less likely to to pay money out to have someone write a white paper or help research blog posts. When the person is already on staff, even part time, you come up with ways to keep them busy, which in turn, moves your firm forward.
I have lots of concerns about solos who focus only on forms and unbundled services and do not offer anything bespoke. I think that now, lawyers on the cutting edge can gain an advantage by using tech to provide forms and unbundled services that are superior in quality to Legal Zoom but at cheaper rates. But forms are getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, as technology is getting better. I have no doubt that within a decade, much of this service will be provided by large national shops, powered by offshored labor – and a tiny firm that offers nothing by forms and unbundled services will not be able to compete. While I love the idea of online practice of law, how many exclusively online companies are mom-and-pops unless they offer something bespoke? But that is a rant for another day.

It’s a worthile read.

http://ailahub.aila.org/issue/26228

Either way, each purchase or expense is subject to a cost benefit analysis.

On an aside, I also think there are times when you need to make sacrifices for your business. I, too, had a mortgage when I started my practice (and still do) but I rented out my house, moved to a smaller apartment and traded in my luxury SUV. That was what was required for me to make it work.

Lastly, as Suzanne pointed out, there are tons of ways to get by on very little in the beginning, it requires more effort, but it can be done.

I’d also suggest hiring non-legal personnel to help, like an accountant. Cash flow is an issue in the early going, but a good accountant can help, and is well worth it. A good accountant is super helpful in setting up your firm, too, as he/she can quickly identity what kind of incorporation you’ll need. It took a 10 minute conversation v. the couple weeks I had spent looking stuff up. Talk about a time saver!