Solo Practitioners

Adventures in Lawyer Advertising: Battle of the Hammers

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For years, personal injury law advertising and violent imagery have gone hand in hand. Only in this field would we get a video of an unhinged attorney smashing a pickup truck into a parked car and call it an advertisement. The more they can yell or blow things up, it seems, the better.

Keeping with the tradition of aggression, we have not one, not two, but three different personal injury lawyers who have branded themselves “The Hammer.” But in the dog-eat-dog world of personal injury law, there can only be room for one Hammer. So who should win the rights to the title?

Should it be Lowell “The Hammer” Stanley from Virginia, who compares personal injury law to making sausage? Or Jim “The Hammer” Shapiro, the personal injury attorney possibly from New York (or Canada or Florida), who claims he loves to play rough? Or our entry from down South, Jim “The Texas Hammer” Adler, who is supposedly meaner than a junkyard dog?

Which Hammer should reign supreme? Let’s review the evidence….

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The Practice: Engaging the Client, Before and After You’re Retained

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Before I provide some advice on client relations that will be deemed “totally wrong” by some and “good advice” by me pretending to be anonymous, I wanted you all to know that I bought a wireless printer that allows me to send documents from my phone, wherever I am, to my printer at my office. Although I currently have no use for this feature in my law practice, and haven’t in 17 years, I hope this puts me in better stead with those of you that think I hate tech.

Now let’s talk about clients, for those of you that have some.

The core of running a practice is machines and toys clients. That you are able to do competent work for clients doesn’t matter if you are not versed in the retaining and retention of them. The retention of any client starts at the initial contact, not when they come to your coffee shop office with a check. For those of you who have practices where you never meet with clients, your initial contact with them (unless it’s them using your website as an ATM to buy documents) is even more important.

While you may be in a position where the client is only calling you, most clients are calling several lawyers. Regardless, you are now auditioning for the job. That audition begins at the very moment you first speak to the client, or the person calling for the client….

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The Best Law Firm Offices in America: Honorable Mentions

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The polls remain open in our Lawyerly Lairs contest to find the Best Law Offices in America. If you haven’t done so already, you can review the eight finalists and cast your vote here.

The Georgia boutique of Bouhan, Williams & Levy took an early lead, thanks to their amazing offices in a restored Southern mansion. Right now, though, 1-800-LAW-FIRM is in first place. How many law firms have “walking tracks” and exercise rooms?

Due to the overwhelming response to our call for submissions, we were unable to include all of the great spaces that you shared with us. Today we’d like to recognize our “Honorable Mentions” — four firms that narrowly missed the final cut….

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The Practice: Understanding Solo Practice Advice From Non-Full-Time Lawyers

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An article came out this week musing on solo practice from resident tech tweeter Niki Black. I felt bad there were no comments, so I thought I would write one.

From Black’s article: “Nowadays, however, it’s much easier to launch a solo practice with a minimal up front investment. All that’s really needed is a small amount of savings, a laptop, a smart phone, and an Internet connection.”

There you have it. We’re done here. All you basement-dwelling “my law school screwed me over by lying to me” bitter and broke lawyers now have the golden ticket: a few bucks in the bank, a quick trip to Best Buy, and voila — a solo practice is born. You heard it here — “[a]ll that’s really needed” is… tech!

And let’s not get into other necessities, like opening an operating and trust account, incorporating, learning the proper way to pay yourself and the IRS, securing appropriate insurances (life, health, disability), maybe having an address to receive mail that isn’t your parents’ house, figuring out how to properly organize and store client files that aren’t in the precious “cloud,” and understanding your state bar’s advertising rules.

I’m sure there are a few dozen other things I’ve missed, but hey, you can only handle so much, right?

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The Practice: Debating Failure, Solo Version

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Hardly ever Every so often an interesting email comes across a lawyer listserv. The good ones are hard to find in the middle of, “Does anyone know a really fantastic and also really cheap lawyer in (some town no one’s heard of where there are no lawyers or courthouses) for my friend who got fired for being late 16 times but he says he was discriminated against,” or, “I know this question has been asked before (every week) but….,” or, “What is the best printer for a lawyer with no practice?”

And then there’s Solosez. This is the listserv for solo practitioners that has all the answers, except to many of the lawyers there who believe it is evidence of the end of the profession. Every once in a while I see an email from Solosez, sent by a young solo who wants to show me evidence of why they may off themselves. (Note: As a result of this disclosure, there will be an email on Solosez reminding members not to forward any evidence that what I’m saying is true emails to Brian Tannebaum anyone.)

Recently, in a moment of rare honesty by a lawyer, a solo wrote to tell fellow Sezzers (I did not make that up, they actually call themselves this) that they had failed at solo practice….

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Reema Bajaj: The Morning After
(Including revelations about Reema from a friend.)

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As we reported yesterday, the comely young Reema Bajaj, a 26-year-old Illinois solo practitioner charged with prostitution, has pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor prostitution count. I previously expressed my favorable opinions of Bajaj and my belief in her innocence (despite the existence of nude pictures of her floating around the internet). Alas, it seems that my confidence may have been misplaced.

As a matter of legal ethics and attorney discipline, what will happen to Bajaj’s law license in the wake of her conviction for prostitution? As a matter of human interest, how did a promising young lawyer wind up in such a compromising situation?

We have some answers. A law professor who teaches ethics addresses the first question, and a friend of Reema speaks to the second….

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(Including revelations about Reema from a friend.)“

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Down Goes Bajaj: Reema Pleads Guilty To Prostitution

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It appears the case of Reema Bajaj has reached a climax. The Illinois attorney who was charged with prostitution has pleaded guilty.

Let’s look at some details….

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How Did the Class of 2011 Fare in the Legal Job Market?

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We try to provide some balance in our coverage of law schools. Last night, for example, we posted our latest round of law school success stories, to balance some of the more depressing fare in our pages — such as the $10K a year lawyer job being offered to Boston College Law School students, which the law school defended vigorously.

At the same time, we have to report the reality that’s before us. And that reality isn’t always pretty.

Which brings us to today’s topic, the latest employment data from our friends at the National Association for Law Placement (NALP)….

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A Lawyer Attempts to Slice, Dice, and Julienne Fry All of the Competition on ‘MasterChef’

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Here at Above the Law, we frequently write about lawyers and law students who have put their legal careers on hold to compete on reality television shows. In the past year or so, we’ve profiled two former Bachelor contestants whose hearts were broken (one from Illinois Law, and one from Houston Law Center); a Harvard Law student who tried to win over his tribe on Survivor; a Northwestern Law student who attempted to weasel his way out of getting fired on The Apprentice; and a former Biglaw attorney whose health-food dishes made the judges want to choke on America’s Next Great Restaurant.

That being said, imagine our surprise when we found out that yet another attorney had decided to make a foray into the wonderful world of reality TV. If you recall, back in May, we brought your attention to a job advertisement for an attorney chef. We thought that was a unique career alternative, but apparently someone had already beaten us to the punch. The latest lawyer turned reality competitor actually is an attorney chef — one who will appear on the new season of MasterChef, which is set to premiere tonight on Fox.

So who is this attorney chef? Was he able to roast the competition like he would have during oral arguments?

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Holy Moley, We Heard From Jim Foley (In Case You Forgot, He’s Running For Judge in the City of Oly)

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At the end of last week, I wrote about an interesting campaign video for Jim Foley, an attorney running for a state judge position in Olympia, Washington. At first I wasn’t sure what I thought about it — was it ridiculous, or awesome, or both? But the longer the video’s rap hook stays in my head, the more sure I am of how great it is.

So, imagine our pleasant surprise here at ATL when we got an email over the weekend from Jim Foley himself. He provided a couple of interesting details about his campaign ad: who’s the mysterious rapping woman? Who were the boys sharing his delicious stew? What exactly are the lyrics to the song?

Keep reading to learn all this and more…

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