In the movie Dangerous Minds, the character Callie Roberts has a gun pointed to her head and the gunman tells her she is going to die. She has no choice. She responds, ‘I do have a choice. I can scream or not.”

I haven’t written a blog post in a very long time.  Probably not since before the pandemic began because, like everyone else, there were so many hard choices to make, ones we never thought we’d have to make.  But they were still choices even if a choice between two seemingly less than desirable outcomes.

What has this got to do with creating and building a solo practice?  Choice. Everything we do, small or big, provides a choice. No matter the chaos, the shifting sands of our economy, we still have choices. And probably one of the best choices a lawyer can make is to regain control over their careers and lives by opening their own solo/small firm practice.

It’s never been easier to open your own solo/small firm practice because of technology and the normalizing of working from home. And it’s never been harder because of the restructuring of how cases are being handled from probate to personal injury. But if ever there was a time to reinvent oneself and one’s practice it would be now.  Why?  Because all the tools are at your disposal to create a practice on your terms, your choices, and your needs. The climate is ripe for creativity and innovation.  What we thought was permanent is now impermanent.  And while in some ways it makes it easier, it also makes it harder because you will still have to deal with a profession which is figuring out how to move forward.  Opportunities often present themselves disguised as chaos. If you can just look through the fog and find a way to move through it more efficiently and effectively and confidently than the next lawyer, you will meet with success.

There will always be clients.  Their will always be legal needs unmet.  There will always be work for you and money to be earned.  You just have to make the hard choices in a timely manner and see them as opportunities instead of insurmountable hills to climb. I was talking to a friend who counsels teenagers and she told me the teenagers who make it through are the ones who have grit, the ones who have had to face obstacles and disappointments and still figure out how to move ahead. The ones who had to make choices, even if some were bad ones.  It’s no different with lawyers. March forward and Solo Practice University will be with you every step of the way.