Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners

The 5 Best Types Of SmallLaw Lawyers

Colleagues like these make being in SmallLaw the best job ever.

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five happy small firm boutique lawyersLast week Two weeks ago, I discussed the 5 Worst Types of SmallLaw Lawyers, so today I thought I would write the counter-article and detail the types of folks that are in my mind the best SmallLaw lawyers. From Bill Clinton to Anthony Kennedy, the vast majority of the most famous lawyers in history came from SmallLaw. For people with outsized ambitions and not a lot of patience, the Biglaw route is not especially appealing. In Biglaw, you can be whoever you want to be, as long as you’re in your office billing hours. When Clarence Darrow was a young attorney, he made a name for himself by going around Chicago, giving political speeches at any place that would have him. Can you imagine being a junior associate and telling your partner someone else will have to turn his comments to the purchase agreement, because you think it’s more important that you give a talk to the craftworkers’ union?

Though all SmallLaw attorneys are in an office with just a few others (at most), we all communicate frequently, and even a big city like New York turns out to be a small town in the end. As I said last week two weeks ago, I have a great group of fellow SmallLaw practitioners that I consider my colleagues, and many of them are among the very best lawyers I know.

Here is my personal list of the five best types of SmallLaw attorneys.

The Ones Who Know When They’re Too Busy (and aren’t afraid to say it). SmallLaw is just like Biglaw, in that it’s easy for a lot of different matters that were at one time perfectly spaced out to start speeding up or slowing down so that everything comes due at once. And in SmallLaw, there aren’t as many options — we don’t have a bunch of people in the Jacksonville office that can be mobilized at the last minute to work on a particular project. Yet, when you’re responsible for keeping the lights on, there’s always the fear that after all of the current matters have been resolved, there won’t be anything left to do, and you’ll have to close up shop and start busking on the street corner. Thus, similar to Biglaw, we don’t say “no” a lot. The best lawyers in SmallLaw aren’t afraid to admit they are too busy, even to potential lucrative clients.

The Ones Who Are Available. See above about being too busy. The best lawyers are, well, the best lawyers, and so they are in demand at all times. Still, there are some who just always seem to have time for a phone call. I don’t know how they do it, because I’ll freely admit I’m not that way. (In fact, I have a policy where at certain times of the day I concentrate on drafting and reviewing documents, during which I neither answer the phone nor email.) I’m much more inclined to reach out to someone — or refer the person work — if I know this particular lawyer is going to answer the phone. Kudos to these lawyers.

The Ones Who Take Their Duties Seriously. Ethics, certainly. The “who is my actual client” question comes into play much more when you’re the one who’s billing and collecting the money. But beyond that, we have duties as lawyers and as representatives to our clients. I’ve been involved in deals that fell apart, with something between a bang and a whimper. Amidst all the fallout it can difficult to determine what is best for the client. The best lawyers don’t get so caught up in a rush to reach a resolution (even if that’s when they’re going to get paid) that they lose sight of their obligations to their client. Ever read (or see) Billy Budd? The best lawyers are like Captain Vere. It’s not always easy to do the right thing.

The Ones Who Are Always Learning. Some of us have carved out practices that have turned into comfortable businesses doing relatively routine work. The best lawyers, even if they’ve managed to crack the code and develop this type of practice, are still always pursuing knowledge. When your day-to-day is packed with billable hours and trying to satisfy a large number of different clients and other stakeholders, carving out the time to read about the latest happenings in law can seem like something you’ll get to right after you finish clearing off your desk. After all, if anything big happens, you’ll hear about it, right? Well, maybe, and maybe not. The best lawyers are up-to-date on the latest developments in the law. That’s why teaching in some capacity is often on the résumé of good lawyers. Twenty-four-year-old law students armed with a quick wit and a search engine have a way of keeping people sharp.

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The Ones Who Read Above the Law. Because it’s not only important to keep up with legal developments, but also about the latest law prof selling meth and whatever is going on at Charlotte School of Law, right? (The most amazing thing to me about that story is that the law prof selling meth wasn’t at Charlotte School of Law.)

Many days, being in SmallLaw is the best job ever. Knowing and being around lawyers like the above goes a long way towards making it that way.

Earlier: The 5 Worst Types Of SmallLaw Lawyers

gary-rossGary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and securities matters for startups, large and small businesses, private equity funds, and investors in each, and also has a number of non-profit clients. You can reach Gary by email at Gary.Ross@JacksonRossLaw.com.

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