When I first saw this post by legal research and writing entrepreneur, Kimberly (Alderman) Penix, I thought, “I want her to guest post on Build A Solo Practice @ SPU because she’s an absolute original:
I have been a small business owner since I was eight years old, selling ice cold sodas to the construction workers building new homes in our neighborhood. It’s in my blood, as my entire family consists of small business owners. I grew up ordering payroll stubs in my mother’s accounting firm, and hanging out at my grandmother’s farm stand on Long Island. I bought my first apartment when I was 20 and became a small-time landlord. I started consulting for antique importers on auction sales soon thereafter and became a cultural property devotee. I choose my practice, my profession, and every day I am thankful for the choices I have made.
Meet Kimberly (Alderman) Penix, a prolific writer, a cultural properties and antiquities lawyer and legal entrepreneur who lives (mostly) in Taos, New Mexico.
Guest Blogger – Kimberly (Alderman) Penix
You Say You Want a (Solo) Revolution
In recent months, weary, disoriented lawyers have been let out of their skyscraper cages. They’re pouring onto the streets, rubbing their eyes in the bright light of the sun, wondering where they’ve been for the past five, ten, or twenty years, and how they’re going to pay their mortgages.
1. Big Law Don’t Own Law No More
Sometimes I feel like Marla, at the end of Fight Club, as she watches the majestic display of credit unions exploding and collapsing, wiping away everyone’s debt, making people equal again. A destruction that creates possibility, and a sharp, biting hope.
Big Law has outlived its usefulness. Megafirms don’t pioneer jack. They are resource-sucks, perpetuators of bureaucracy, faceless names on a long list of links to insipid bios. They’re glorified sweatshops, producing the same kind of crap we’ve come to expect from Big Box stores.
Their refusal to innovate has caught up with them. Now, megafirms stand as unmoving, engorged heaps, useless and unable to adapt to the changing times.
I’m calling it right now. Big Law don’t own law no more. The little guy is taking it back, and that includes you and me.
2. The glory of the Solo Revolution is that lawyers are being invited to reinvent themselves and their profession.
No longer are you some kind of guerilla if you want to do something non-traditional. The fact is that being a person, being multi-dimensional, makes you a better lawyer.
Solos are making the practice of law about more than just business. We’re bringing to life the culture of connection that lawyers have been yearning for.
When I was in my first semester of law school, my class received a lecture from a professor on how we were to do our summer associate interviews. “You will wear navy blue. Not royal blue. The fabric will be solid, not pin-striped or puckered. Ladies, your skirts will hang just below your knee. Not at your knee and not to your calves.” This went on for about a half an hour. It was enough to kill, butcher, and bury any interest I ever had in Big Law employment.
But times they are a-changin’, and it’s becoming more and more acceptable to just be who you are. If you’re a lawyer-slash-developer, or a lawyer-slash-cheesemaker, or even a lawyer-slash-writer (like me), then that’s just fine. The invitation for authenticity has been well received.
3. Technology has enabled Solos to mobilize their forces. That’s what makes this a Revolution.
Every day it amazes me how the Solo community is now so accessible due to technology and social networking. There isn’t nearly as much “solo” as there used to be in solo practice.
A new Solo can set up shop, pop online, and within a month create an entire support network – people that he or she can pool resources with just for the sake of sharing. Some Solos are on Twitter most of the day, chatting with other attorneys as time permits, creating a kind of global chat room that serves as both a social and practical resource.
Technology is also giving Solos a platform to more effectively market to potential clients. When it comes to the web, Solos actually have an edge on Big Law because they can actually connect with people. So while Big Law is “marketing,” Solos are just being themselves, connecting with each other and potential clients in the process. This willingness to connect is revolutionary. It’s creating a Solo group consciousness that any Solo in need can draw upon for support.
I’m by no means a leader in the Solo Revolution. That torch is carried by (men and) women like Susan Cartier Liebel and Carolyn Elefant, who have been sharing their adventures in solo practice since before blogging was cool.
Really, I’m not even a footsoldier. I’m more like the support troops, working behind the scenes to make sure that solo attorneys have the tools necessary to effectively and efficiently run their firms.
I didn’t open a Solo legal research and writing practice because I was desperate, or because I got canned. Freelance law has always appealed to me because, simply, I’m a freelance kind of person. I like to come and go as I please, and the variety of assignments keeps me engaged.
As I mentioned, I’m a bit of a lawyer-slash-writer, so when its slow on the legal front, I might be working on a novel, or a grant proposal, or even whipping something up for the local newspaper. Then again, I might also be out riding my bike, with my adorable Golden Lab running alongside.
Viva la revolution.
KKimberly (Alderman) Penix is an independent contract attorney that provides legal research and writing services to solo and small firms nationwide. This post was premised upon her new, hopefully not too Jerry-McGuire-esque Mission Statement, which can be found on her website at http://www.lawyerbird.com. She is the author of the Cultural Property and Archaeology Law Blog, as well as Lawyer On! The Contract Attorney’s Blog.
Need $12,000 towards your solo practice? We’ve got it for you at Solo Practice University.
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Inspiring post for all professionals breaking out of traditional roles! Great point that clients receive the benefit of an authentic attorney. When we are authentic and true to our core values, we position ourselves for maximum creativity.
Thanks for this guest post. It’s very interesting and a good fit for the growing theme of independent employment. If you’re unfamiliar with the work of Daniel Pink’s “Free Agent Nation” it may interest you to peruse his work. In many ways your description mirrors his thesis.
Creating a sustainable work/life balance is a growing challenge in large corporate settings and the rise of web 2.0, specifically the interconnectedness afforded through various social media tools, becomes a field leveler for solo professional practitioners and entrepreneurs alike…an agility that’s difficult to match in large organizations.
With the recent ratification of health care reform and simplicity in linkage provided via web 2.0 I imagine the trend toward independence will emerge as a growth engine for the new economy. I, for one, am excited to see the results in the decades to come.
Thanks again.
I sat and listened in shock and horror to the same lecture on interview-appropriate attire! They said skirt (absolutely not pant!) suits. They said take off your engagement ring and don’t breathe a word about possibly ever marrying or having children. No color, no personality, nothing expressive. In fact, you were to research your interviewers and appropriate and display enthusiasm for *their* interests! I was scared. I wanted a job. I bought it. I wore navy skirt suits with horrible “interview color” nail polish and dampened down my personality to next to nothing. I hated every minute of it. Just reading your post brought the shudders back!
I’m happily solo now, wearing bright colors, funky jewelry, and my baby in a sling while I meet with clients in my dedicated home office which is anything but a boring, sterile environment! I am a real person with a real life and when I finally just fully embraced all of that it was liberating and empowering and surprise – far more effective at attracting new clients (rather than scaring them away). Yes – the times they are a-changing. Thanks for this and best wishes!
When I read the paragraph describing appropriate interview attire, images of Star Trek’s Borg came to mind. The law firms interviewing on campus weren’t looking for innovative free thinkers, but rather drones that they could assimilate into their Big Law collective. It’s no wonder they are now having a hard time adapting the changes technology has precipitated.
I remember thinking “if hey look at my resume and want to meet me, then interview me, but only see that my suit is green and pinstriped, then I was lucky I escaped working there.”
I don’t know if I would have stood by my guns, though. The firm I clerked for all through law school offered me a job, and every position I’ve held since then has been a result of networking, not cattle call, so they already knew me before they hired me.
As a solo, I find that my clients are comfortable with my being a real person. If the dog barks in the background, I don’t cringe. In my first few years out of law school, I would have been mortified for someone to think I allowed myself to have a life.
That big-law environment never suited me to begin with; and while I love going solo (I just started my own practice one month ago), it’s been harder than I imagined. I have a virtual office and work from a corner of my small apartment. I also have a certain amount of anxiety about receiving phone calls at my home. Last call from a prospective client ended when my daughter planted herself squarely on my foot and demanded a snack in her sometimes-cute/sometimes-utterly-obnoxious squeaky voice. It wasn’t the most professional moment, but then again, the person on the other end of the line wasn’t serious about legal services, either. No harm, no foul? Perhaps.
Sarah, no harm, no foul. These are real people with children of their own. They also understand calls get forwarded and they don’t know where they are reaching you, court, on the road, in your child’s bedroom. You have to be able to tactfully explain and move on without apology as long as you are choosing to work at home.
Sarah, there is no reason to feel anxious taking calls at home. I posted about the subject quite some time ago, but I think it is still relevant.
http://stayviolation.typepad.com/chucknewton/2006/10/a_totally_quiet.html
I appreciate this post’s enthusiasm, especially because I share many of the basic beliefs implicit in the message.
The problem I’m repeatedly slamming my head against is the fact that every innovation I come up with seems to violate some rule conjured up by the Bar to maintain the status quo.
So far as I can tell, my choices are to become utterly jaded like an abused spouse or to take my chances and Fight The Power if they force my hand.
Wes, that really is not a problem with the practice of law as it is a problem with everything. Moderation is not always bad and easing toward a goal is preferred. Having litigated against the Texas and Arkansas bar associations before the states Supreme Courts and in federal courts, I have learned there might not be total fulfillment in taking a steady approach, but then there is not total fulfillment in anything. Besides, I have learned with age that you can approach change, or really solutions, in ways that do not raise dislike and hatred of others.
Instead of bemoaning your situation, as I can tell from the SPU site that you are struggling with these issues in broad form, maybe it is best to concentrate on specific things.
Share with us some of the innovations you want to employ that are causing you trouble. I doubt I will agree with all of them, but then not everybody has agreed with me over the years. Diverse opinion is what causes true understanding. It adds texture you can look at. Besides, I would bet you that there is somebody at SPU that has tried almost everything you have thought of at one time or another. Some have failed at it and some have succeeded. The key is to figure out why they fail and succeed.
We have probably beat your value billing idea to death. I am not as enthused with it as you are, but it is always worth a try.
But, apart from value billing, what are some of your thoughts, some of your ideas, some of your concepts the acceptance of which are controversial? It is probably better to debate them out loud because more voices help, but if you do not want to, I will flesh them out with you. Just email me directly at chuck@chucknewton.net.
Way to go, Kimberly! You hit the nail on the head–it’s all about connection. Marketing and rainmaking are necessary to the survival of every lawyer, but in the end both are all about connecting with prospects and clients. And you don’t need a navy blue suit to do that.