We’ve been posting information about Solo Practice University™ for several months and now we’re getting ready to launch.

But there are still questions out there, even from some of our longtime subscribers, about what we’re doing.

Here’s an unedited email message we received last week.

I have been getting emails from you guys for the last few months.

And…. I still do not understand your concept. What exactly are you doing and how can it make me a better, happier, less busy, more effective sole practitioner? I see all these blurb emails and don’t know what you are up to. There’s some disconnect (at least for me) with your marketing.

Regards

These are important questions and we’ve received other inquiries just like this one, so we’d like to address the questions directly right now.

WHAT is Solo Practice University™?

A web-based educational and networking community for lawyers and law students.

WHY join?

• Learn about the practical aspects of running a law practice, in addition to substantive areas of law, from quality instructors.
• Interact with your instructors by asking questions and adding comments directly below the course material, having discussions in the forums, or engaging in private conversations.
• Connect with lawyers and law students in a private, secure environment with the social networking functions, including groups, blogs, and mini-communities, that are built directly into the University.

HOW does it work?

Solo Practice University™ is a private, membership-based website. University students can log in to the website and access the course materials whenever they choose. Instructors will upload videos, podcasts, presentations, live lectures and more to their classrooms. Most importantly, students and instructors can interact in a variety of personal and meaningful ways.

WHERE is it?

It’s right here at http://solopracticeuniversity.com/! We’re actually testing the private part of the site right now. And we’ll be giving this public part of the website a bit of a makeover when we launch. UPDATE: We launched on March 20, 2009. Enroll now!

HOW MUCH will it cost?

We’ll be publishing the exact tuition costs very soon. We can tell you that tuition will consist of a low monthly fee that will be affordable to just about everyone. UPDATE: The tuition costs are listed on our signup page.

WHY are we charging tuition?

We want to maintain a level of quality within the university and encourage interaction between instructors and students. The low monthly tuition will help to ensure that each member is committed to the community and willing to invest their time and effort in learning and helping others. We also want to provide excellent customer service and charging tuition will make this more manageable for us.

We also don’t want to be held hostage to advertisers in order to keep our doors open. Nor do we want to endorse services and products we do not believe truly benefit solo practitioners. Tuition from students allows us to keep it honest and real. Therefore, when you see services and products in our Co-Op you know we believe in them. (More on that in the future.)

We also are very committed to  providing financial scholarships to new solos who could use a hand getting started.

WHEN do you launch?

Soon! We’re talking weeks not months. We’ll be posting more details about launch date and tuition very soon.

WHO is behind all of this?

Susan Cartier Liebel of Build A Solo Practice, LLC and David Carson. Follow both of them on Twitter (@SCartierLiebel and @davidtcarson) or meet them in person next week in New York at LegalTech 2009.