Our Biggest Concern About Starting A Law Firm Was… Not Knowing Where To Start

“There are so many facets that go into creating a business from the ground up,” said Southard. “We needed someone to help us look at the big picture and prioritize what was most important.”

CCP_8390

Tom Crosbie, Ray Gliner, Dana Schiffman, Sean Southard and Craig Swanson were at the top of their game when they left a large law firm in 2013 to launch a new business model for a commercial real estate law firm.

The long-time partners recognized that clients are exercising their purchasing power for legal services like never before. They knew that if they didn’t leave Biglaw, the pressures and metrics of compensation, combined with Biglaw’s inability to respond quickly to client business demands, would make it exceedingly difficult for them to retain — let alone expand — their representation of the types of clients with whom they wanted to work.

Where most Biglaw attorneys see risk in breaking away from the comfort of an Am Law 200 firm, the founders of CGS3 saw an opportunity to differentiate their practice from the way legal services are delivered in today’s marketplace. They knew they had the experience, ideas and existing client relationships they needed to go out on their own.

They also knew that – in order to do it right– they needed to re-establish a collaborative and congenial culture focused on teamwork, respect, and individual empowerment to make decisions about how best to maintain a cooperative relationship with clients.

What they didn’t know was where to start.

“There are so many facets that go into creating a business from the ground up,” said Southard. “We needed someone to help us look at the big picture and prioritize what was most important.”

Sponsored

Eighteen months later, CGS3 is at the forefront of a growing trend of experienced “Biglaw” attorneys who have started their own firms. CGS3 has created a new law firm business model that is centered on commercial real estate. The firm competes directly with Biglaw firms by delivering high quality, sophisticated legal services with exceptionally skilled lawyers, but at rates that are competitive with small firms and make good business sense to its clients.

Since launching, CGS3 has more than doubled the number of CGS3 attorneys and now boasts 10 transactional real estate attorneys, one real estate litigator and two paralegals. As one of the largest real estate focused legal groups in San Diego, CGS3 enjoys a regional, state and national reach, and it continues to add new partners, associates and staff. All CGS3 attorneys are exceptionally skilled, have impeccable legal pedigrees and similar “Biglaw” experience. Moreover, all new attorneys complement the firm’s commitment to focusing only on commercial real estate, creating a “one-stop shop” for institutional and sophisticated commercial real estate companies.

“The response we’ve had from our attorney peers and the broader commercial real estate industry that makes up our client base has been overwhelmingly positive,” said Southard. “But by far the most rewarding part of this experience has been the opportunity to continue, and in most cases to actually expand, our work with a marquee list of clients that trust us to handle their most complex matters in California and around the country.”

CGS3 has been a driver in leading the profession in finding new ways to lower overhead and achieve significant cost savings that can be passed through to clients. This includes maximizing the efficiency of its office space, leveraging state-of-the art technology and online cloud storage systems to make the firm virtually paperless, and outsourcing core administrative functions.

To support their efforts, CGS3 worked with NexFirm. “There is no question that starting a law firm is a daunting proposition,” Southard said. “But from the first phone call, we got the operational and planning guidance we were looking for and were quickly able to gather and prioritize the information we needed to make critical decisions about what we needed to do to successfully launch our firm.”

Sponsored

Today, the firm continues to rely on NexFirm’s back office support system to handle its billing, invoicing and accounts payable functions. NexFirm also acts a professional employer organization to CGS3 and provides employee benefits, payroll, workers compensation and risk/safety management services.

“NexFirm has made many of the most time-consuming “back-of-the-house” functions of running our business disappear and that helps keep us focused and on track,” Southard said. “NexFirm gives us the freedom and confidence to focus on the meaningful legal work we do with our clients and on finding ways to continue to support our lawyers in their collective effort to grow our law firm.”

Contact NexFirm today, and discover what your practice can become. Dial 212-292-1000.