Solo Practice University® » Suzanne Meehle

D-I-V-O-R-C-E. When the Business Partnership Is Over.

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:00:28 +0000

I have not spoken much about my previous business partnership in this column. I guess that’s because, when I started writing for Solo Practice University, it was pretty fresh and raw. I was still stinging about the end of what in the beginning had promised to be my law career’s happily ever after.

And… I missed Alyson. My business partner and my friend, the person with whom I spent every waking minute from June 2009 until December 2010.

A business divorce is no different from a marital divorce in most regards. You divvy up the property, sell the stuff that nobody wants to take with them and pay the last of the bills the best you can with whatever is left in the bank. You file that last tax return together. You change the name, but you are carrying on the same business. You fight. You cry. You decide who’s getting the house… er, office. Instead of deciding who gets custody of the kids, you sent letters to the clients promising them that you are the one they really want to go with. If things go badly enough, you end up in mediation or even in court to decide what that Shareholders Agreement means and who gets what.

Nobody Wins.

When Alyson and I broke up our law firm, it felt like I was losing everything. It felt that way to her, too. We both felt betrayed. We both felt tired.

I won’t go into the she-said/she-said of why we broke up the firm. It happens. You need different things from your careers. Money is tight and you fight about it. You can’t agree on how to run the business, much less how to practice law. You disagree on what clients you want to serve, what services to offer. You didn’t adequately think through the responsibilities each of you would shoulder. Or maybe one of you figures out that they just don’t want to run a law firm after all. There are endless reasons why a law firm breaks up.

At the very end, I remember that our bitterest fights were about who got to “keep” the goodwill of the business: Who owned the website and domain name, and how would we handle taking the site down? Who (if anyone) got to keep the phone number? Would we forward email from the old addresses to our new firms? What about our branding and logo?

In the end, nobody got anything. My husband – who is an IT guy and, as it turned out, was the one who owned the domain name – forwarded the old domain to my new website for a brief time, but that was just his way of annoying Alyson. I never got any traffic from it, and when I found out about it I made him stop. Alyson got the old phone system, but had to choose a different number. Email got forwarded. The money we spent on a logo and marketing was just wasted.

Nowadays, Alyson and I are friends, but at a distance. I still think she is an amazing attorney – one of the best litigators I have ever known, and absolutely brilliant at getting problems resolved for her clients. If she was not working in-house, I would happily refer clients to her. I have no idea what she thinks of me professionally, nor do I care to ask. We chat about safe subjects – art, film, photography, theater, her kid. We mostly see each other online, on Facebook.The advice part of this column – you knew it was coming, right? – is pretty straightforward:

Know Thyself.

Just as you need to know yourself and be comfortable with who you are before you get married to anyone else, you need to know who you are as an attorney and as an entrepreneur before you get into a law firm partnership. What do you want out of it? What do you hope to accomplish? How do you hope to benefit by the partnership? Wanting to quit your job isn’t enough.

Know Thy Partner.

If there are skeletons in the closet – personally or professionally – find out now. You are entering into a business marriage. Why do you want to business-marry this particular person? Know your partner as well (if not quite as intimately) as you would know a prospective spouse. Spend a long time “dating” – talking about the partnership, your roles, the business, marketing, clients, everything. Write a draft of a business plan together and know what each other’s strengths and weaknesses are. Be picky.

Be Self-Sufficient.

Nobody wants a business partner who is a deadbeat, just like nobody wants a spouse who is a deadbeat. So be prepared to make it rain all by yourself. Treat your practice as though you are a solo practitioner, even though you have a partner. Expect the same of your partner.

Be Honest.

You might be tempted to tiptoe around your partner, afraid you might hurt their feelings or, God forbid, they might disagree with you and have a fight. But a little honesty – with yourself and with your partner – goes a long way.

Expect Respect.

Do not settle for less than the full respect of your business partner. Do not get into a partnership with someone you do not fully respect.

Know When To Leave.

If things do not feel right when you are getting started, or if you get the feeling that something isn’t right as you go along, listen to that voice in your head telling you to leave. Do not wait for things to get bitter and divisive. Just say, “It’s not working out,” and go. You are not doing anyone any favors by prolonging the agony.

I have said before that a great friendship does not translate into a good business partnership. What I have not made clear is that a bad business partnership can easily kill a good friendship. Alyson and I will never be the kind of friends we were – best friends – before our partnership.

Business partnerships are like marriages; and if you don’t want yours to end in divorce, know what you are getting into before you say, “I do.”

Written by Suzanne Meehle

A Note to the Newly-Minted Lawyer

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:00:22 +0000

Dear Law School Graduate,

Congratulations! You just finished what seemed impossible three-and-a-half short years ago as you sat in your first Contracts class thinking you might die if your professor actually called on you. You finished. And now, as you prepare for what seems like an even more insurmountable challenge – passing the bar exam – you are hit in the face with headlines like, “Unemployment Crisis for Law School Grads Deepens” and ”Just How Bad Off Are Law School Graduates?”

Yeah. I know. That really sucks. You’ve worked your butt off and for what? There are no jobs. Big Law firms are laying off experienced attorneys. The D.A.’s office and the Public Defender are laying off folks too. The six-figure salaries that once accompanied a law degree are long gone, but the cost of getting that education has skyrocketed. Your student loan debt is crushing, and job prospects are pretty much nil. So what are you going to do about that?

Once you quit crying into your ramen noodles (or whatever you are living on while studying for the bar exam), give yourself a few minutes to think about it. What are YOU going to do?

Want to know what I think? I think you just need to figure out what your options are.

Go In-House. Do not limit your job search to just law firms. Part of the reason that Big Law jobs are so scarce is that the big companies that employ the Big Law firms have figured out that they can do a lot of that work themselves. Most in-house jobs require at least some litigation or transactional experience, but I’ve had friends who started their in-house careers as interns working for in-house legal departments. Research the major employers in your area, learn something about their industries and the kinds of work they do. Find out who their in-house general counsel is and try to get in front of them.

Insurance Defense. Yes, I know. Everyone cringes at the idea of defending big bad insurance companies, and you do not make as much money working for the insurance companies. But there is a huge payoff to be had here. You will get a ton of experience in contract review, drafting pleadings, taking depositions, doing e-discovery, you name it. And it’s a bona fide legal job.

Hang a shingle. The Big Law jobs are gone and the Big Law business model is a dinosaur. So what if you can’t get a job there? Once you pass the bar exam, you’re considered to be competent to practice law. So go practice law! There are more opportunities for solos and small firms to learn how to lawyer and run their business (hello! SPU!). There are great tools out there that make hanging a shingle affordable and easy. And practically all you need to market to prospective clients is a decent and ethically-responsible website, which you can learn to do yourself using WordPress or Joomla (and a little research on our professional rules) in about 15 minutes.

The bottom line is this: once you are an attorney, you have no excuses for being unemployed. If you still want that Big Law job, the best way to get hired is to not be that lawyer who did nothing with his degree for two years while looking for a job. It is better to be self-employed than unemployed.

So get to work.

Be local counsel. There is a tremendous opportunity to get courtroom experience by serving as local counsel for hearings for other law firms. Lawyers cannot be two places at once, and very often you will see law firms advertise for someone to cover a hearing for them. You need to get up to speed quickly on their client’s file, appear in court on their behalf, and return a report to the attorney who hired you regarding the results of the hearing. If you handle matters competently, have a professional appearance to the client and the court, and are diligent in turning around the results, you may get called back again and again.

Entrepreneurship. Your law school education is a great foundation for owning and running a business. My friend, Mike Ange, is a professional SCUBA instructor, expert witness, and dive shop owner. My law school classmate, Ed McKernan, owns a BMW parts and service company. Another classmate, Jenna Dunaway, owns a custom apparel company that serves the campus Greek community. All of them followed their passions outside of law school to build successful businesses.

Do something else. Burned out on the law after going to law school? You are not alone. If starting a business is not for you, you can find work for non-law businesses. I have law school friends who are deans and professors at local colleges. One friend works for LexisNexis writing case summaries. One who went to work for our law school alma mater in the administration. Still others sell insurance, run title companies, and work as financial planners.

So my friends, I am here to tell you that your degree is not worthless. You are not “stuck.” You have a great career ahead of you.

Much love,

Suzanne

Written by Suzanne Meehle

What If?

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:00:38 +0000

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.”
John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller – Pamphlet

What if you didn’t have a mountain of student loan debt? What if you didn’t have to worry about what all your lawyer friends thought about you? What if you never had to worry about where the next paycheck was going to come from? What if you could just do what you wanted with your law practice?

Better yet, what if you won the lottery?

I’ve been at this law thing for about a decade now – from the time I walked through the door of my first law school class to now. Before that I used to say almost every day, “Man, if I won the lottery, what I’d do is go back to school to get my law degree.” Yep, I used to say that. Nope, I did not win the lottery.

When I first started thinking about going back to get my J.D., I was a couple of years out of college. I was a bit aimless right out of school. I was an English major, after all! I had worked my way from realtor to waitress to temp secretary to retail store manager to dental office manager over three years time. I had moved from Huntsville to New Orleans, to Memphis, and back to Huntsville. I was learning to work on computer networks, but I knew that I did not want to make that a long-term career. I kept hearing the voice of one of my college professors ringing in my ears, “It’s OK if you don’t want to go to get your doctorate in English literature. There’s always law school.”

Time flies. I landed my first tech job working as the database administrator for a state-run mental health center, then transitioned to a job as a systems engineer for a software company. Ten years later, now living in Florida, I was still working as a systems engineer, still working for software start-ups, still repairing computers and programming databases. Still saying, “What if?” Don’t get me wrong – I had a great career. I was a very good systems engineer, I had a nice consulting practice on the side, and I could have done that for a long, long time. But, “What if?”

In late 2002 I was dating a wonderful guy, Tim (now my husband), and we would walk together on the beach every morning before work. Every day I would talk about “one day” going to law school. He finally got sick of hearing it. He told me, “You don’t have to win the lottery. Just go to law school.” He encouraged me to chuck a perfectly fine career in computer technology and pursue my “what if.” And so I did.

I loved every minute of law school. Even when I was crying in the restroom because my contracts prof tore into me in class. Even when I sucked so bad at oral argument that one of my professors suggested that I should just quit my moot court team. Even when I was labeled a “gunner” for raising my hand in classes. Because I was not doing this for my classmates or professors. I was doing this for me. It was MY “what if.”

After law school, I did what was expected and went to work at a Big Law firm. The whole time I was there, I kept wondering, “What if I had just hung a shingle?”

In many ways, what I did not like about Big Law were the same things I did not like about working as a systems engineer in a software company. You don’t get to choose the corporate culture when you work for someone else, you don’t get to choose what projects you work on, and you don’t get to pick the clients you work for. Of course, you don’t have to worry about whether you’ll get paid or have benefits either, but the perks come with some pretty heavy strings attached. Your work life belongs to someone else.

I was as terrified by the prospect of going out on my own as I had once been of going to law school. It was my new “what if.” Once again, Tim stepped in as the voice of unreason, telling me that I did not need to win the lottery to start my own firm any more than I did before going back to school.

That was four years ago. Four years since I hung a shingle, declared that I was going to practice law my way, and dove into the deep end. It’s not easy, I’m not going to lie, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

Today, my “what if” is more along the lines of, “If I won the lottery, I would hire someone to work for me so that I could take a vacation.” Sometimes it’s, “If I won the lottery, I would buy this building so I could grow my law firm here.” I wouldn’t quit working. I wouldn’t even move into a bigger, better house. I probably would buy a new car, but I digress.

The thing is, you don’t have to win the lottery to live your “what if.” You just have to be more afraid of never doing that thing you’ve always dreamed of than you are of letting go of what’s comfortable and safe.

You have to give yourself permission to live the life you want. To have the career you want.

What if…?

Written by Suzanne Meehle

What a Lawyer Can Learn From an Entrepreneur

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 12:00:48 +0000

I am in awe of my clients.

That’s why I chose to represent small business owners exclusively. Because I get jazzed talking to entrepreneurs. Because I adore talking about the issues and practicalities and triumphs and failures these small businesses encounter every single day.

I learn more about business from my clients than I ever could from a CLE class on business law. And there is plenty to learn. I’m getting a street-level MBA!

It’s a Numbers Game

My clients taught me that running the back office is just as important – if not more important – than being good at the job. You can always hire another technician to do the work product and provide service to customers, but someone has to take responsibility for operations behind the scenes. Payroll. HR. Accounting. Billing. Business planning. Marketing. Those are the underpinnings of a successful business. Any successful business. Yes, you can hire someone who can handle the bookkeeping and accounting and even the marketing, but ultimately you are responsible for the numbers.

I have a client that can quote to me, on an hourly basis, his restaurant’s cash flow. Money in and money out is the key to survival in any business, but particularly in a business like a restaurant. Or a law firm.

Partner Wisely

Those who have been following this blog for a while know that I started out in Big Law, moved into a two-person business partnership, then went solo. I learned from that partnership in the middle of my career that a good friendship (I adore my former business partner) does not always translate into a good business partnership (we nearly killed each other). So basically, all that taught me was what not to do.

My clients taught me how to pick my partners. No, I have not joined with another firm – I’m still solo. I mean “partnership” in the loosest, least-legal sense of the word. My clients taught me that my “partners” include everyone who is involved in running my business. My assistant. My Of Counsel. My bookkeeper. My accountant. My IT guy. My answering service. They all have an impact on how well I am able to serve my clients. My clients have taught me not to “partner” with anyone without a contract (duh!), and not to partner with someone who isn’t on the same page as me.

Don’t Wear Too Many Hats

My clients taught me that every business needs three people in management: a Visionary – the person with the ideas for making the business better; an Operations Manager – the person with the ability to keep things running day-to-day; and a Numbers Guy – the person who knows what the bottom line is and can manage to that. You can be any or all three of those people at different times. Note that none of those three is a Lawyer – the person that cranks out work product for the client. These are the different roles of the business manager(s).

They also taught me that you have to know your strengths. You probably are not as capable at one or more of the managerial roles to wear all of the business manager’s hats. If you lack the knowledge, skill or desire to manage all aspects of your business, educate yourself or hire people who can fill those roles and let them manage you. I watched many small businesses fail because the owners insisted on absolute control, even when they knew they were not good at one of these fundamental roles. I watched many small businesses succeed because the owners were smart enough to get help when it was needed.

At Big Law, the firm’s managing partner was a helluva Visionary and a decent Numbers Guy, but he was not terribly good at Operations. He needed a firm administrator to keep things running. Today, I know that I am a good Visionary and Operations Manager, but not enough of a Numbers Guy, so I have a bookkeeper and an accountant to keep me straight (see above re: being responsible for the numbers).

You Are Your Brand

I do trademark transactions all the time, so I thought I knew everything about the subject. Hah! I had much to learn.

For example, my clients taught me that the “goodwill” that lawyers always talk about being invested in a trademark or brand comes from within your business. It’s corporate culture that dictates when and how calls get returned, the level of service clients can expect and what price they will pay for your services. It’s the way you and your employees represent your firm to your clients and potential clients. It’s the way you appear to the court. It’s the way you appear to opposing counsel. It’s if and how you advertise your firm. Those things form the consumer perception of your business. In short, as a solo attorney you are your brand. How people see you is how they see your business.

One client that stands out is a local wellness center that is involved in every networking group and chamber of commerce in town. The owners are great guys: fun, laid back, friendly. But when they are out representing their business at a networking function, they come across as caring and warm but passionate about their business and always 100% professional. Make that 110%. I pray to come across that well someday .

Don’t Expect the Competition to Give You Business

I used to spend a lot of time at lawyer-only functions. But my clients taught me that networking with potential clients and referral sources outside of the legal industry are a better way to build my practice. A wedding planner gets her business referrals from florists and photographers, not other wedding and event planners.

So don’t expect to get business law referrals from the members of the business law section of your local bar association. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t GO to the business law section meetings – just don’t expect to build a referral base there. I focus instead on networking with other business-to-business service providers, like CPAs, insurance agents, marketing agencies, financial planners, etc. And when I do hang out with other lawyers, I work to create a broad network of peers: I get a number of referrals from friends who practice family law, estate planning, and employment law.

Don’t ever forget that a solo practice attorney is an entrepreneur first. You are no different from any other small business owner in most respects. You are just selling a different product.

Written by Suzanne Meehle

One. Solo.

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:00:37 +0000

My assistant, Wendy, and I had a heated discussion recently regarding my calendar.

“It would help if, instead of just putting stuff for me to do on my calendar at random times, you’d make appointments with the client for me to call them. That way it’s an actual appointment, not just a suggestion,” I said.

“I put stuff on there so you will get it done when I put it on there! It IS an appointment!” she argued.

“Yes, but…”

“NO BUTS!” she cut me off.

Turns out, because of a computer issue, she hasn’t been getting all her (or my) email for the past week or two and had no clue how busy I’ve actually been. She thought I was just sitting on a bunch of work.

Silly rabbit! I have in fact been VERY busy taking care of all kinds of stuff, including all of the client production matters she puts on my calendar. But there is only one of me, and there are only so many hours in the day, and sometimes that half hour “appointment” to draft a document or return phone calls just won’t cut it.

That means that some things get put off. It’s just the way it is.

Last month, I talked about how you are only as good as the last thing you did for your client, because all he’s going to remember is whether or not you returned his call. That is also just the way it is.

But… and it is an awfully big “but”… you also have to cut yourself a little slack. You are only one person.

One person can make a very big difference when that one person is a lawyer. One person can also make herself crazy trying to get EVERYTHING accomplished that needs to be accomplished.

Delegate what you can. Hire help if you need it.

In my BigLaw days, I once went for several months without an assistant, not including the several more months of trying out new assistants who either did not work out or quit shortly after being hired. So I was used to working without an assistant. But I also had had the very best assistant EVER for a brief time (before the firm rather stupidly let her be hired away by another Big Law firm in Downtown Orlando), and I knew what a difference it made in my productivity. A great assistant keeps you on schedule, on task and free from distractions. And puts things on your calendar so you don’t forget them. And reads all of your email so that things don’t fall through the cracks. And… well, you get the point.

When you start to get enough client work to fill your calendar every day, that’s a good indicator that you need to hire someone.

What you can’t delegate, prioritize.

If you do not prioritize and actually get some of those things off your to-do list, your firm grinds to a halt. The only way those things will get done is if you get as many of the distractions that take up so much of your time out of the way.

Start by scheduling time to return phone calls and emails, and do your darnedest to stick to that time. It’s easy for calls and email to overtake your day, so you have to set some limits. After that hour or ninety minutes or whatever is up, move on.

Next schedule some marketing time every week. No marketing equals no new business, so whether it’s scheduling lunches with potential referral sources or writing an article for a magazine or posting to your blog or just updating your website, you HAVE to make time for this every week. Stick to those activities you have scheduled. Don’t spend so much time marketing you have no time to do the work you bring in.

The next thing I do is to clean off my desk. Completely. Then I put back on my desk only those things that I must work on right away. What work I can farm out to my associate of counsel, I hand off to her. Everything else goes into my assistant’s inbox so she can deal with it: scheduling the follow-up, writing a letter or email, or putting that work on my calendar for the next day or week, as appropriate.

Then, I can actually get some work done.

What has to be put off, put off.

Maybe not forever, probably not forever, but for a few days. Or even weeks. Because you cannot do it all. Even with help, there is only so much you can do.

Just be smart about your procrastination. Are you procrastinating because this is something that can actually be handled later? Or are you avoiding doing something because it’s boring or repetitive or because you don’t really like the client that much (be honest!)? If it’s something that really can be done later, do it later.

If not, do it now so that it doesn’t become a road black to getting other things done.

If something gets put off over and over and over again, ask yourself why. And if the answer is, “because it’s not really important at all,” take it off your to do list entirely.

Put in the time.

The last bit of advice I have for people who, like me, get swamped, overwhelmed, sidetracked and otherwise have trouble fitting everything into their day, is to make sure you are putting in the time.

It’s just now noon, and so far I’ve had five meetings. I’m heading to a client’s food truck grand opening for lunch (a marketing activity). This afternoon I’ve got calls and email to return and client work to do. Tonight I will be working on some bookkeeping and administrative stuff, albeit on the living room sofa. That’s a pretty typical day.

As a business owner, you cannot complain that you don’t have enough time to get everything done in a day if you are only putting in minimal effort and minimal hours.

And then go home.

You also can’t let yourself burn out by working twelve to sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Acknowledge that everything did not get done, then go home and have a life.

For me, that means keeping my weekends (at least mostly) a work-free zone. I work out with a trainer Saturday mornings as incentive to exercise the rest of the week. I also see a nutritionist once a week to keep me eating right. I go to bed by 11:00 p.m. pretty religiously so that I’m getting enough sleep. I make a lot of time for friends and family as often as I can. I’m far from perfect, but I’m trying to carve out a personal life as well as a business and a career.

Recognize that it’s just you.

You are allowed to be human. You are only one person.

One. Solo.

Written by Suzanne Meehle

Big Law in Small Doses May Be Right For You

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:00:11 +0000

I have spent a lot of time telling you all the reasons why I was unhappy as a Big Law associate, how and why I left Big Law, and what I’m doing now. I’ve expounded about what is wrong at Big Law. But there’s something more to the story. Something you ought to hear.

Many of you, if given the chance, really should accept the job at Big Law. Here’s why:

For the Prestige.

Clients and other lawyers are impressed with the Big Law name on your business card. It opens certain doors, gives you instant respectability. It masks the smell of insecurity that emanates from a brand new, freshly-hatched baby attorney.

If you someday want to go on your own, it doesn’t hurt to be able to say that you started out at Big Law. People nod and smile and assume that you learned all you needed to know while you were there. Other lawyers respect that you put in your dues at Big Law before hanging a shingle. Clients assume that they are getting the same level of expertise and service that they would at Big Law.

For the Money.

You have student loans to pay and bills coming in. Why incur the added expense of running a law firm when you can bank a little money working at Big Law? Yes, working for yourself means more flexibility, but the hours won’t necessarily be any less than at Big Law, and the learning curve is just as steep either way. And in this economy, nothing beats a guaranteed salary. If you are uncomfortable with not knowing that the bills will be paid every month, the job at Big Law is probably right for you.

For the Experience.

As a new attorney, you have a lot to learn. A LOT. So why not do it on someone else’s dime? Being a brand new Big Law associate means that someone else – your boss – is responsible for the work that goes out. Someone should be reviewing your work product, looking over your shoulder, correcting your mistakes. As appealing as the autonomy of a solo practice is, it makes sense to work under the wing of a more experienced attorney when you are fresh out of law school. Just be careful – not every firm actually mentors their young associates, and it is just as much your responsibility as your boss’s to build that relationship.

For the Clients.

One of the toughest things about being a new solo attorney is building a client base. But if you go work for Big Law for a few years, you will likely build a clientele of your own that will follow you if and when you leave. It also will let you build a referral network that benefits the Big Law firm while you are there but follows you when you leave.

For the Security.

You’re not an entrepreneur and maybe you never will be. Learning to practice law while simultaneously learning to run a business is, to say the least, daunting. Going to work at Big Law feels more secure (although, in all honesty, with law firms laying off attorneys, there is no such thing as security). Not to mention, there is a reason that Big Law is big: lots of people LIKE working for someone else. They like knowing how much their paycheck is going to be month-to-month. They like not having to market so heavily. They like having a path laid out for them from associate to partner to equity partner. It’s safe! And safe, for most people, is not a bad thing.

For Now.

You have a job offer from Big Law. You know you want to own your own firm someday. But someday does not have to be today. Take the job! Take advantage of what Big Law has to offer. While you are there, pay attention to everything that it takes to make a Big Law firm succeed – it’s not really much different from what it takes to succeed as a solo. You are not committing to a lifetime as a Big Law associate. You can still prepare yourself for that time in the future when you decide to go out on your own. What have you got to lose?

So before you just assume that working for yourself is better, find out if Big Law is for you. I know it was right for me, if only for a while.

And if you don’t have an offer from Big Law, don’t sweat it. You’ll be fine too. That’s what SPU is here for.

Written by Suzanne Meehle

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 13:00:02 +0000

David Wong’s brutally honest article, Six Harsh Truths That Will Make You a Better Person, in Cracked made my day. Go read the whole thing. I’ll wait.

You done? Good. You may be a little offended by the blunt and sometimes belligerent tone of the article, but you just learned a valuable lesson: Your only worth in this world is what you can do for other people.

That’s right. Being a good person, being a “nice guy,” isn’t worth Jack. What have you done to make the world a better place? To help people? Or, from your client’s perspective, what have you done for me lately?

You are only as good as the last thing you did for your client.

The practice of law is – or should be – utilitarian in nature. We do stuff for people that they cannot do for themselves. We write contracts. We navigate statutes and codes and case law. We attend hearings and mediations and negotiations and vigorously represent our clients. We write contracts that no one but another lawyer can understand.

Mr. Wong challenges his readers to “Name five impressive things about yourself. Write them down or just shout them out loud to the room. But here’s the catch — you’re not allowed to list anything you are (i.e., I’m a nice guy, I’m honest), but instead can only list things that you do (i.e., I just won a national chess tournament, I make the best chili in Massachusetts).”

As lawyers, listing those five things should be easy. We are, after all, attorneys at the bar. We negotiate deals and draft agreements. We go to court and argue. But those things are intangible. We don’t build bridges or buildings, make stuff, heal the sick, or feed hungry people.

If we are only worth what we can do for someone else, what good are lawyers? In other words, what is the real value of what you do?

I don’t mean monetarily, although certainly that is one measure. In human terms, what is your worth to society?

Do you do pro bono work? Awesome. But we as a society put little value on being so virtuous.

Do you do solid legal research and drafting? That’s the bare minimum of competency our clients expect.

If you litigate, do you win for your clients? Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. Winning the case has value. If you do transactional work, the equivalent of winning might be “screwing the other guy.” But the harsh reality is that you can’t win every case or triumph in every negotiation. Someone has to lose and sometimes that’s gonna be you.

So what good are you to your clients? What value do you bring to their lives?

My belief is that the real value in what we do is not in the outcomes – well, not just the outcomes. It’s all about the relationship. The relief of a grieving widow that her husband’s estate is being handled by their lawyer. The reassurance of a small business owner that her lawyer understands the corporate and tax codes that affect the business. The injured person who knows his attorney is fighting for him, win, lose or settle. Those things matter more than whether our clients get everything they want.

Connection matters. Phone calls matter. Emails matter. Christmas cards matter. Monthly newsletters matter. Letting your client know you are thinking about them matters far more than your billing rate.

No client wants to hear that you are too busy with other clients to take care of them. No client will forgive you if you fall out of touch.

I recently had a client leave my practice because I got really busy and forgot to return her phone call. Her feelings were hurt and she hired another lawyer. It doesn’t matter that I have done consistently good work for her. All that matters is that I dropped the ball.

When we get too busy, have too much on our plates to keep up with it all, the first thing we tend to let go of is connection to the client. If you get hundreds of emails a day, it’s pretty easy to let one or two or ten slip through the cracks. When your phone rings non-stop, it’s tempting to hit the Do Not Disturb button. But staying connected to the client is job number one.

My former boss at Big Law was an absolute MASTER of this fact. He might be several weeks behind on every single file, but by God he made sure every client knew he was “working on it.” He sent texts, emails, and returned phone calls like a champ. He never missed a client’s birthday, bar mitzvah or funeral. He stayed in touch with more people better than anyone I’ve ever known. That’s how he made partner at Big Law. And it’s impressive as hell.

He was a good lawyer, sure. But there are a LOT of good lawyers out there. What made his services worth a premium is that he delivered on the connection with his clients.

As Wong points out, it’s like the famous speech Alec Baldwin gives in Glengarry Glenn Ross. (Yes, that speech is about a lot of other things, too.) Baldwin’s character addresses a room full of real estate agents, telling them that they’re all about to be fired unless they “close” the sales they’ve been assigned:

Nice guy? I don’t give a s***. Good father? F*** you! Go home and play with your kids. If you want to work here, close.

For lawyers, that relationship is the “close.” That connection to our clients is all we have to build a business on.

So, I’ll ask it again: What have you done for your clients lately?

Written by Suzanne Meehle

The Big Lie About Big Law

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 13:00:36 +0000

Remember your first semester of law school? Everyone was scrambling to be at the top of the class because everyone knew that only the top 10% or so of the class would get a coveted summer internship at a Big Law firm. And everyone knows that the best way to get a job at Big Law when you graduate is to be a Big Law intern during your 1L summer, if at all possible.

Yes, everyone is a “gunner” for the first few weeks of law school.

Never mind the desire to do well academically for the sake of, you know, doing well. Throw a Type A future lawyer who is used to being the smartest person in the room with a hundred or so other Type A future lawyers who are also used to being the smartest person in the room, and you have yourself one helluva competition.

Trouble is, the prize at the end of the competition is a myth. That’s right: there is no Big Law internship waiting for you just because you aced your Crim Law, Torts and Con Law finals. And why should there be? Big Law jobs for brand new associates straight out of law school are going away. Technology has made the grunt work once done by a cadre of young associates – legal research and drafting – much easier for the Big Law lawyer. The Big Law baby associate is becoming obsolete.

But that’s not the BIG lie. The really big lie in Big Law is that the young lawyer needs the job at Big Law, not that Big law needs young lawyers.

Law schools teach us from Day One that a job at Big Law is the goal. And it is – for the law school. A million baby lawyers hanging their shingles fresh out of school screws up their U.S. News ranking, don’t ya know.

But does a new lawyer straight out of school need Big Law? I don’t think so.

First and foremost, there have always been a number of newly-minted lawyers in every graduating class that hang a shingle right away, and most of them do just fine. Just because a law school doesn’t treat it as a desirable option doesn’t mean it has not always been a desirable option.

More importantly, the same technology that makes practicing law more efficient for the Big Law attorney is now cheap and readily available to the small firm and solo practitioner. From affordable online legal research services, to document assembly applications, to cloud-based practice management, time management and accounting applications, technology that was once only available to the legal elite is now within reach of the budding solo.

My experience as a Big Law associate was that we were actually less technologically savvy, less nimble, less flexible, and less efficient than I can be as a solo. Take that, Westlaw!

The mentoring and training of time spent at a Big Law firm that are supposedly the great benefits to the young lawyer are also mythological. Most Big Law associates are pointed to the deep end of the law library pool and told to start swimming. In contrast, I watch young solos at bar luncheons working the room, building relationships with more experienced attorneys and actually getting some of that all-important mentoring.

The one real benefit to working at Big Law straight out of law school is that you get to make your early mistakes on someone else’s dime. The thing is, most new lawyers I have encountered work very diligently not to make very many mistakes, period, whether they are at Big Law, a solo or at a small firm.

Finally, there is the student loan issue. Graduating with $100,000 of debt is intimidating to say the least. The logical thing to do, it could be argued, would be to go for the guaranteed salary of a Big Law firm so that you can pay those big loans! But considering how many Big Law firms recently have laid off young associates (and even partners!) it seems to me to be just as risky to join Big Law as to hang a shingle. Maybe less so since you can’t really fire yourself as an employee if you are a solo practice attorney.

So the myth that you would do better to go to work for Big Law straight out of law school than to hang a shingle is, I think, well and truly busted. If you want to pursue that elusive job at Big Law, go for it… but not because you feel like you HAVE to. Do it if that’s what you want out of your legal career. Otherwise, go the solo or small firm route. You won’t regret it.

Written by Suzanne Meehle

You’re An Attorney, But Are You An Entrepreneur?

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:00:31 +0000

The very first business I ever owned was a babysitting service. Yeah, I know, everyone is a babysitter when they are 16. But I figured out that I could charge more for my services if I went a little further than the other sitters. So I cooked dinner for the kids, helped with homework and even made sure to pick up the house after I put the kids to bed. Pretty soon I had quite a little roster of local moms who fought over me. I bought my first car with babysitting money.

And that was it. I was hooked. I liked working for myself. I liked marketing my services, getting referrals, building a business. Since then, I have owned a few businesses.

In high school and college I tutored middle school kids in math and English. In college and for a few years after that I ran a catering business out of my mom’s kitchen. I sold real estate for a very brief period after college, looking for an opportunity to build a business (before realizing that I hated selling houses). And during the twelve years or so that I worked as a systems engineer, I freelanced as a database administrator on the side.

Except for law school and the three years I spent working for BigLaw, I always had a side business. But I never lost the bug. Heck – part of the reason I wanted to go to law school was so that I could work for myself full-time. Going solo was always in the back of my mind, even when everyone told me to go after that BigLaw job. Even after I listened.

My point – and yes, I really do have one – is that I’m an entrepreneur first. And if you think being a solo attorney is what you want out of your legal career, you need to find out if you are an entrepreneur too.

Inc. Magazine’s Eric Schurenberg defines entrepreneurship as, “the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” Which is a fancy way of saying that an entrepreneur is someone who perceives and pursues opportunities without regard to a lack of resources (e.g. money). In other words, entrepreneurs are willing to bootstrap their businesses, willing to dive in despite the lack of a steady paycheck. It’s not about being risk-tolerant. It’s all about carpe diem.

For every born lawyer entrepreneur, there are a dozen lawyers with no real desire, talent or tolerance for starting and running a business. These run the gamut from the happy associate, content to work hard for someone else and let that person handle all the day-to-day operations of the business of law; to the go-getting rain-making partner who buys into someone else’s law firm.

The entrepreneur is a rarer breed. We like to think we have a unique approach or a better way of doing it (whatever “it” is). Where others just see risk, we see opportunity.

For example, when I first opened my own firm, I saw an opportunity to focus serving on small businesses and, I believed, to provide my services differently than other business lawyers. My BigLaw colleagues uniformly thought I was nuts. How could I give up that nice fat paycheck, retirement plan and insurance to do the same job for less money?

OK – when I put it that way, I admit that it sounds a little crazy.

However, to me, it wasn’t “the same job.” It also wasn’t just about ego, about being the boss. It was about that opportunity I could see right in front of me like low-hanging fruit. And I wanted it. I wanted it more than any salary, more than the high-rise office, more than anything.

It’s that drive, that desire, that passion for the opportunity to practice law on your own terms that defines a lawyer entrepreneur.

That, I believe, is the difference between a happy and successful new solo and a struggling and miserable solo.

When I counsel new small business owners, we often start with some business planning. I work with my clients to get them to define their business by describing what distinguishes them from anything else in their marketplace. The ones who are passionate about that distinction see only opportunity to be better than the competition. They are entrepreneurs. The ones who have trouble describing what makes them different may be successful business owners, but they will never love what they are doing the way the entrepreneur does.

My hope for all of us solos is that we become entrepreneurs. Find your passion. Have a vision for your firm that makes you unique, and seize your opportunities.

Written by Suzanne Meehle

The Power of Audacity

Suzanne Meehle — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:00:14 +0000

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” ― Oprah Winfrey

I’ve written before about the Grown Ass Woman Brigade, a charity/women’s organization that my friend Heather Lam and I started a while back. You might have noticed that the name of the group is a little… well, audacious. We are a little outrageous, a little in-your-face. We wanted to make sure no one was confusing us with the Junior League. In fact, this is our new logo:

Yeah. We’re not exactly the D.A.R. When we tell people the name of the organization, there is always a moment of, “Did you really just say that?” Followed immediately by, “Hell yeah, that’s what I said!” And nine times out of ten, the follow up to that is, “So how do I get involved?” The outrageous name is our calling card, and we use it to get what we want: a network of strong, intelligent, powerful women who don’t take themselves too seriously.

Heather is one of the happiest people I know. She is also completely audacious. She has a habit of skipping or galloping wherever she goes. She swears she can only be serious for about thirty minutes before the silliness has to be released. She jokes that if she licks something, she owns it (and then she licked my cheek). She doesn’t care what other people think, and always asks for what she wants. She decided to start a community theater company, and did. She decided she was going to lose weight, then proceeded to lose 70 pounds in less than a year by dieting and hula hooping (her preferred form of exercise). She decided to tell the man of her dreams that she was in love with him, then moved mountains to be with him – changing jobs and relocating from Florida to California. She does what makes her happy, what amuses her and brings her joy. She decides what she wants, then she acts boldly to get it.

By being bold and different, you stand out. You get attention. You let everyone know what you’re all about. Being audacious is one way of asking for what you want. It’s direct and to the point; so much so, in fact, that audacity will almost always get you farther than subtlety. Don’t leave ‘em guessing! Be audacious about what you want.

As lawyers, we often see audacity in a negative light. The audacity of the ambulance chasing lawyer with his face on a tacky bus stop or billboard ad can make us cringe. But the fact of the matter is, those bus stop ads work or those lawyers wouldn’t keep paying for them! It is seen as more decorous, even prestigious, to be passive, waiting for word of mouth to build, never directly asking for business. But this is a business, and to get the work, you have to ask!

So take your prospective referral source out to lunch, but never, ever end the meal without bluntly asking what you can do for each other business-wise. Ask what referrals are they looking for, and tell them what referrals you need. Ask your clients what else you could possibly do for them when you’ve completed a job. Ask during your intake about everything that is going on, and if you can, include an “additional proposed scope of work” telling the client what other services you think they might need (this is how you turn drafting a will into drafting a will and a family trust and a business exit strategy and setting up a new LLC and…).

The same is true for your work/life balance. If you work for someone else, you won’t ever get the time off for that vacation if you don’t ask for it. Actually, that’s true if you work for your own firm, too. If you don’t tell your clients that you’ll be gone for two weeks in February, they will expect you to be available. It’s up to you to set the boundaries between work and home and find a balance that makes you happy. You will never get it if you are not bold enough to ask.

But audacity can give you so much more! Audacity can literally transform your life.

For me, going to law school after a career as a systems engineer was a pretty bold move. Yeah, it took a while. I had to take the LSAT, apply to law school, figure out how to pay for it, divorce my ex-husband, sell a house and more just to make the transition. But once I got myself pointed in this direction – toward the career I had always dreamed of – I let nothing stop me. And again jumping from BigLaw into a small firm and ultimately to my own solo practice was hugely audacious! Being a solo meant flying without a net – no guarantees of salary or paying the rent. But once I made the decision to leave, nothing could stand in my way. Otherwise, the leap wouldn’t have been possible.

Once I decided to jump, the whole world changed. I gave myself permission to reinvent myself within the practice of law. I ditched the billable hour, took the CLE classes I wanted to, got to pick and choose my clients, got to practice only in areas that actually interest me, etc. I told anyone who would listen that I was different. I plastered all the things that make me different on my web page and all over Facebook and Twitter. And an amazing thing happened: clients started finding me on their own, and referrals started to pour in from other lawyers. My audacity in putting it all out there pays off every time the phone rings. And every time I can go home at the end of the day and have dinner with my husband, too.

If you could change your life, would you? Find out. Be audacious.

Written by Suzanne Meehle