Notes from the Breadline: To Be On Your Own (Part II)

Ed. 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.
As the summer drifts by with no sign of viable employment prospects, I realize I am suffering from a pernicious affliction which, while common amongst lawyers, has reached epidemic proportions here in the breadline. In a word, the problem is this: slavery.
No, friends: I’m not referring to the kind of involuntary servitude expressly prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment (of which I am not, of course, making light). I’m talking about the unique bondage of the BlackBerry, which ensnares us with invisible, but often impermeable, shackles. Or, if you are infinitely cooler and have an iPhone, there’s probably an app for that.
Following this realization, I resolve to develop a more normal relationship with my BlackBerry. No one is calling or emailing to offer me a fantastic job, I remind myself. Being hyper-attuned to the blinking red light that would, in theory, alert me to new messages or missed calls has not, thus far, caused any new messages or missed calls to materialize. So, I decide, I will take the bold step of leaving my BlackBerry at home when I go out to do errands.
“Don’t worry,” I say to the device anxiously, as I prepare for a Berry-free outing. “I won’t be gone long.” In some cultures, offering reassurance to a phone might be considered … well, strange. But those cultures, I tell myself, are judgmental and parochial.
Alas, my leap of faith is rewarded with an email from a recruiter looking to fill a temporary position “ASAP!!,” and although I send him my resume as soon as I can, he writes back to tell me that the job has already been filled. Irritated, I notice that I have also missed a call. When I check my voicemail, there is a message from a former colleague. “You didn’t respond to the Evite, Roxana,” she says. “I hope you didn’t forget about our reunion dinner tomorrow night.”
The dinner she is referring to is a yearly gathering for alumni of a Big Law Firm where I once worked — which, in fact, I forgot about. But, while I usually look forward to the event, I find myself regarding it with dread. How many times will I have to announce that I was laid off? How many questions will I have to answer about my job search? What if I’m the only person there who is unemployed?


I shuffle through flimsy excuses not to go — swine flu? nothing to wear? can’t find my umbrella? — before I come to an unavoidable conclusion: I’m going. I can’t afford to pass up this kind of networking opportunity, no matter how great the potential for discomfort.
The next night at dinner, I am seated between Sasha, a motherly woman whose tenure at the Big Law Firm preceded my own, and a plate of fried calamari. “So, Roxana,” she says, “where are you working these days?”
“Well,” I say, “I’m not. I got laid off a few months ago.” Sasha looks at me in horror. “You DID?” she says. “Did you get a severance package?” No, I tell her, I didn’t. “How are you surviving?” she asks dramatically. “Do you have insurance?”
I explain to her that I am collecting unemployment, that I have availed myself of the COBRA subsidy, and that I eat a lot of soup. “That doesn’t sound very good,” she says, wrinkling her nose at me. She looks uncomfortable, as though she is afraid that joblessness is contagious. “Are you trying to find a job?” she asks.
“Nah,” I’m tempted to answer, “Work is for suckers. I, however, enjoy living on $405 a week.” But then I remember Max’s admonition to be “up” about the fact of being unemployed.
“Oh, definitely!” I say brightly. “Do you have any suggestions?”
“You should talk to a recruiter,” Sasha says. “That’s how I got my job.” This is going nowhere, I think. I turn to the plate of calamari. I like you better, I tell it silently.
Eventually, I strike up a conversation with Marco, who also worked at the firm before my time. He has been a solo practitioner for over ten years, since he left the Big Law Firm. Unlike many large firm refugees, Marco always knew that he wanted to be a solo practitioner: he worked at the firm for just long enough to make the money he needed to hang his own shingle. When I tell him that I am unemployed, he responds without skipping a beat. “You need to go out on your own,” he says. “I mean, why not?”
I begin reeling off objections. There is the cost of starting a firm and the administrative aspect of managing it, both of which seem daunting. There is the question of how to get clients, and, of course, what to do once you have them.
“Let me guess,” he says, laughing. “You’re afraid you’re going to fuck up.”
“Well,” I say, “yeah. Frankly, I’m not sure I know how to do the things a solo does.”
“Look,” he says sternly, “it’s not that complicated. When I left the Big Law Firm, I asked everyone I knew to send me cases they didn’t want, and I got a ton of clients right off the bat just from those referrals. You have no idea how many matters are too small for a big firm, but still worth a lot of money. I started out doing ‘door law’ — basically, anything that came in the door. I didn’t know how to do most of it, so I spent a lot of weekends working on simple motions and preparing for depositions. You learn as you go. You know how to do research, you know how to write briefs; if you don’t know the answer to something, you know how to figure it out. You work really hard in the beginning, err on the side of being too prepared, and overthink everything. Then it gets easier; you build a body of work; you learn the ropes. It’s not rocket science. You’d be surprised how easy it is to make $100,000 just doing door law.”
Months ago, solo practice did not seem like a viable — much less appealing — option. But now, listening to Marco’s enthusiastic endorsement, my interest is piqued. Perhaps it is because my job search has stalled; perhaps the force of countless brow-beatings (some friendly, others decidedly less so) has moved me closer to at least considering the possibility. Perhaps I am afraid of how quickly my dreams seem to be slipping away.
A few days later, I email Susan Cartier Liebel, the founder of a nifty web resource called Solo Practice University, or SPU. Although “SPU” sounds as though it could be another addition to the Law & Order franchise, it is, in fact, an online school for aspiring solo practitioners. Susan, herself an enthusiastic solo practitioner, urged me to explore what it had to offer several months ago, when I initially — and reluctantly — examined the possibility of hanging a shingle.
“I understand your hesitation,” she told me when we spoke. “In the professional world, there’s a big divide between firm lawyers and solos, almost like a caste system. People in Big Law work on high-end cases and get big salaries, and they tend to view solos as people who ‘can’t cut it.’ There are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to be a solo practitioner — and with these misconceptions comes an inhibition to try.” But, she explained, we live in a different world; today, solos can do just about anything.
“Ugh,” I said. “That might be true, but what about the hassle of running a firm? The administrative aspect of solo practice seems like a nightmare. How do people even have time to do legal work?”
“What you’re saying is valid,” Susan said, “but I think that’s a common misperception. Nowadays, ‘virtual law offices’ allow you to practice from anywhere, and the software and services for case management and billing take a few minutes to learn and they simplify the business of running your own firm. The reality is that it’s not that complicated.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” I told Susan. “It seems pretty complicated to me.”
“That’s because you never learned how to do it!” she answered. “Law schools and firms don’t teach you how to actually practice law; in a sense, they rob you of the ability to feel capable. In theory, your law degree allows you to have a choice; to practice any kind of law you want. But where is that choice if you think you don’t know how to do anything?”
No kidding, I thought. I never considered solo practice to be a “choice.” “We’ve all gotten assignments that deal with subjects we don’t know anything about,” I said. “But there’s a big difference when you’re at a law firm, where you can ask for help, or rely on your colleagues’ expertise. The thought of handling something totally unfamiliar, as a solo, is kind of scary.”
“That perception is probably the biggest hurdle potential solos face,” Susan told me. “And believe me: everyone starts out being afraid. You’re afraid that you’re a malpractice case waiting to happen; you’re afraid a client will bring a grievance; you’re afraid to even deal with clients. The psychology — the fear — of being on your own is the hardest part. I’m hoping that, by teaching people how to master the technological, the organizational, and the substantive aspects of solo practice, we can make it less scary.” Go ahead, she urged me. Try it. “Think about it this way,” she said, “if you’re a solo, you can’t be laid off.”
Back then, I perused SPU’s offerings, but the site was still a work in progress; a number of the classes had yet to begin, and there were few course materials available. And, of course, my flirtation with solo practice evaporated before I had a chance to “matriculate,” so to speak. Like many freshmen, I ate a lot of pizza, and then dropped out.
When I returned to SPU recently, however, I found a bustling virtual “campus,” with an expanded roster of faculty and classes. In order to provide a comprehensive “education” for putative, and potentially clueless, solos (like me!), SPU’s course offerings cover four distinct areas: Substantive Law, Marketing & Management, Technology, and Work/Life. Susan recommended that I check out a course called “The Solo Firm of the Future” (taught by value-pricing guru Ron Baker), and substantive classes on personal injury practice, real estate transactions, jury selection, and family law.
As I prepared for my first classes at SPU, I was surprised by a sudden, nostalgic surge of anticipation. It was the feeling, long-forgotten, of starting a new chapter; beginning a new school year; embarking on something unknown. As a practicing lawyer, learning was a necessity, tied to deadlines, the pressure to prepare, the disastrous consequences of ignorance, and the looming potential for humiliation. But as a law student, each semester was a chance to discover something that I hadn’t known before, to absorb knowledge for the sake of knowledge. It was a luxury I hadn’t appreciated until it was gone.
And, I admit, there were some odd first-day jitters. I considered the possibility that, once immersed in SPU’s classes, I would find solo practice to be as inscrutable as I had imagined. What if the basics of jury selection suddenly felt foreign and ridiculously complicated? What if simple real estate transactions seemed as alien as conveyances once did? What if, after months of sitting on the bench, my thought process had rusted to the point of immobility, like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz?
Alas, the length of my commute to class left little time for contemplation. (I clocked it at just under 2.1 seconds.) I floated in and out of several virtual lectures before sitting through the first session of Personal Injury 101, in which I found myself dorkily engaged.
I suppose I should tell you more about my first day of school, but I probably shouldn’t be writing Notes in class. Why don’t we catch up later? Meet me by my locker, after 4th period.
To be continued….
Solo Practice University [official website]
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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. And check out the Notes from the Breadline t-shirt store here.
Earlier: Prior installments of Notes from the Breadline

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