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Notes from the Breadline: To Be On Your Own

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 10:06 AM - By Roxana St Thomas

Notes from the Breadline Roxana St Thomas.jpgEd. note: Welcome to the latest installment of “Notes from the Breadline,” a column by a laid-off lawyer in New York. Prior columns are collected here. You can reach Roxana St. Thomas by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.

Friends, family, and complete strangers have, at times, suggested this response to unemployment: “Hang out a shingle!” I may have mentioned, in past columns, that I don’t care for the idea. In fact, I may have mentioned it on more than one occasion.

Whether to hang out a shingle seems to be one of life’s persistent questions. Recently, I was chatting with my editor here at Above the Law and, sure enough, it came up in our conversation. “So,” Lat said, “why don’t you want to hang out a shingle?” Before I knew it, I had been tasked with compiling a list of reasons why, exactly, I don’t think that hanging the much-discussed shingle is for me. So, in no particular order, here goes.

1. Shingles aren’t free.

There’s a reason why some clients and companies have begun to seek legal advice that is freshly made in India, the Philippines, and other offshore locations. The rates charged by stateside lawyers are the sum total of a number of components, many of which are substantive, and related to the expertise provided by a particular attorney. But a lawyer’s price tag also reflects pesky factors like overhead, which can be considerable. Although I imagine that I could fashion the actual shingle using DIY techniques learned in high school, or on one of many shows on Bravo (or perhaps a design model borrowed from successful lemonade stands everywhere), there is the not-insignificant matter of where the shingle would hang. Office spaces in New York range in price, but they start at around $1,000 per month, which — if you’re lucky — may buy you something like this.

Mind you, this is just for office space. All of those things we take for granted when the firm provides them, from copy paper to computers, require additional expenditures. While it may be true that when you have nothing, you have nothing to lose, it is also true that most landlords / vendors / putative office staff generally will not agree to be paid in “nothings.”

More reasons, after the jump.

2. On a related note, it costs a lot to run a railroad.

Let’s assume, arguendo, that we find an office space in which to hang the “Law Offices of Roxana St. Thomas” shingle. Then what? In the course of the average day at the average firm, big or small, the average lawyer runs up quite a tab in the process of creating the average work product. There are the obvious costs to consider — you make phone calls, a messenger takes your motion to court for filing, a secretary may answer your phone. But there are also the costs which (if you’re used to working for The Man) tend to escape notice. You probably keep track of your billable hours using time management software, belong to a bar association, attend CLE, and maintain a web presence through your firm’s site. You are almost certainly insured against errors, omissions, and malpractice. And, of course, there is the necessary, though costly, matter of research. I urge you, if only for frolic and detour, to look into the rates charged by Lexis and Westlaw. They are nothing short of breathtaking: the cost of few hours in the ALLFEDS database is probably not much different than the cost of renting a private jet for the same block of time.

Sure, there are cheaper ways to address some of these needs, but at what cost to productivity? For example, one could, in theory, work from home. What happens, however, when it comes time to meet with a client? For any number of reasons (two of which are feline), no amount of Queer Eye-inspired refurbishing would make my apartment presentable in the professional sense. Would we meet in Starbucks? The café at Whole Foods? The New York Public Library near my house, which has a separate (and usually empty) children’s reading room? We would have to sit in tiny chairs, knees bumping our chins, surrounded by Thomas the Tank Engine and other figures from children’s literature. But at least it would be quiet.

Perhaps most importantly, how much does it cost to equip an office with hot and cold running coffee?

3. Someone has to be the conductor.

I know lawyers who revel in the nuts and bolts of practice. They immerse themselves in evaluating the pros and cons of various technologies designed just for lawyers. They view themselves as “managers,” delight in the science of mastering workflow, and keep an audiobook about the secrets of successful rainmaking queued in their CD player. They can enumerate at least Seven Habits that make them Highly Effective People.

None of the above-mentioned traits or talents are within my repertoire, or, as they are known in public service, “KSAs.” (That’s a handy government acronym for knowledge, skills, and abilities.) The daily administrative demands of running a law firm would, I suspect, lead me expeditiously to either malpractice or insanity, perhaps both.

Is it important to challenge yourself, and, at times, push yourself beyond your comfort zone? Sure. It is, however, equally important to be realistic about one’s core capabilities. I was (and am) a good lawyer; it doesn’t mean that I would be good at running a law practice, even if it were my own. And while I suspect I could play the part of solo practitioner/office manager for a short time, I do not believe that I could actually be those things. As Joan Cusack explained in Working Girl, “Sometimes I sing and dance around the house in my underwear. Doesn’t make me Madonna. Never will.”

4. What color would my parachute be?

A while back, my friend Giovanna and I were talking about the practical realties (or, in our case, the unrealities) of hanging out the ol’ shingle. “Honestly,” she said, “I hate to say this, but I don’t think I’d be qualified to work as a solo practitioner.” After years of working on large, document-intensive cases, she explained, she did not feel as though she had the kind of experience one would need to be a generalist, as most solos are (at least initially).

That, I suppose, is the yin and yang of working at a Big Law Firm: as an associate, you have the opportunity to work on bigger, more complex cases than a smaller practitioner might be exposed to. On the other hand, this kind of work leaves you ill-prepared to do real estate closings, divorces, custody cases, and DWIs. Putting aside the timeless debate about whether the work done by associates at Big Law Firms is “substantive,” Giovanna makes an excellent point. And, although my background is slightly different than hers, I have the same concern about whether I could represent clients in the kinds of matters that are the bread-and-butter of solo practice without too much egregious fumbling.

Recently, I read an article about “niche specialization,” which seems to be another term for “truly eclectic practice.” The special niches discussed in the article included “wine law” and “video game law.” One lawyer even opened a practice in the virtual world known as Second Life. “It’s a place where you can wander around as a character and interact with other people,” he was quoted as saying. “We opened up an office there as well just to try it out and do something different.”

(I couldn’t help wondering what the CLE requirements are like in Second Life, and whether there are virtual bar functions at which your virtual colleagues consume too much virtual cheese and box wine. More to the point, could one open a virtual office in Grand Theft Auto? There, I thought, is fertile ground for virtual clients … and, if worse came to worse, you could always deck them and drive away in their (virtual) car.)

Then again, everyone says that there is a steep, though surmountable, learning curve for practitioners who strike out on their own. In fact, the bar may be lower than you might think. The other day, the guy who works at my local dry cleaner asked me why I hadn’t been in recently. When I told him that I’d lost my job, he suggested that I open an immigration practice in Chinatown.

“There’s just one problem,” I told “John” (as he is known in the neighborhood). “I don’t speak Chinese.” He was unfazed. “It don’t matter!” he said brightly, with the same impermeable optimism I’d seen him muster with patrons who wanted to know why their favorite sweater suddenly looked as though it had been pilfered from Barbie’s closet. “A lot of lawyers take the money, and then they don’t file any papers. As long as you don’t do the fucking-over, you can be very …” He paused to search for the right word. “… successful!” For a minute, it seemed eminently doable.

5. Would I have to do one of those ridiculous ads?

You know what I’m talking about. You’ve seen them on billboards, on the subway, and on late night television. They tell you whom to call “When diamonds aren’t forever,” “When you’re only allowed one phone call,” or if you or a loved one has had the misfortune of ingesting lead paint, being exposed to asbestos, or suffering an injury in, on, or remotely related to a New York City bus, train, or hospital. If your problem concerns taxes, you might be instructed to “Call Roni Deutch!,” a woman who has labeled herself “The Tax Lady,” and emphatically promises to save your ass if “tax problems are ruining your life.”

Similarly, if obstacles to collecting Social Security benefits are getting you down, you might want to call the fellow from Binder & Binder, who assures his distraught potential clients that he (and his partner, Binder #2) will “deal with the government,” because “You have enough to worry about.” At least I think that’s what he says; I have never been able to watch the ad without being distracted by my speculation as to why he delivers this (otherwise soothing) message while wearing an Indiana Jones-style hat.

The Binders are, apparently, America’s most successful Social Security Disability Advocates. Perhaps the hats (which are worn by both Binders) are part of their “brand.” Perhaps a hat translates into marketing gold. You can’t rule these things out.

My point is that, in this ultra-competitive environment, one has to spread the word somehow. Since I no longer have Cliff to act as in-house ad consigliere, I’d have to come up with my own material. While I have a few ideas, none of them are quite ready for prime time, and, in truth, I don’t know whether I’m ready to take that step. In the unlikely event that I do, however, I’m pretty sure that the current, challenging legal market calls for innovation, and new (possibly unconventional) ways of providing value-added legal services. How’s this for starters?

“Roxana St. Thomas, Esq. can handle all your legal needs! Roxana will represent you in civil or criminal matters in state or federal court. And she easily removes cola, wine, and pet stains, doesn’t drip or make a mess, and washes, dries and polishes any surface. Apply directly to the forehead… Apply directly to the forehead!”
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Roxana St. Thomas is a laid-off lawyer living in New York. You can reach her by email (at roxanastthomas@gmail.com), follow her on Twitter, or find her on Facebook.

Earlier: Prior installments of Notes from the Breadline

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Posted in: Job Searches, Layoffs, Notes from the Breadline, Solo Practitioners

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