Law Schools

Thinking Of Opening Your Own Law Firm After Law School? Read This.

Three things I wish I had done in law school to prepare for owning my own business.

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I didn’t always dream of having my own business, law practice, or otherwise. In fact, I went to law school to be a prosecutor. Every single thing I did in law school was centered around reaching that goal. To make an extremely long story short, I didn’t get a job as prosecutor. My career path took a turn when I accepted a fellowship as an immigration defense attorney and, one short year after law school, I started a boutique law firm with my friend. This was a pretty drastic deviation from my carefully crafted game plan. I was very excited, but kind of clueless as to what we needed to do to be successful.

Luckily, I partnered up with someone who had been working towards having his own practice for a long time. They say the only ship that doesn’t float is a partnership. But, we proved them wrong! We ran a profitable law firm from day one and even opened a second business a year later. Both business are still thriving today. While we were successful, that doesn’t mean it was easy or that we did everything the “right” way. There were a lot of needlessly long days, things that were more frustrating than they should have been, and unnecessary tears (at least on my part). If I could go back, here are three things that I would have done differently in law school to be better prepared to own my own business.

Diversified My Course Load

As you can imagine, I had a heavy focus on criminal law when deciding my electives. I wish I had taken a greater variety of courses to get a better idea of what other areas of law interested me.

In addition, I should have taken advantage of the Law Practice Management and Accounting for Lawyers courses at my law school. The Law Practice Management course was actually very cool. It allowed students to work together to create law firms. Students learned valuable lessons about creating a business plan, managing client money, and marketing, among other things. They also held a fair where they displayed their law firms to the community and received feedback. I opened my law firm just one year out of law school and it would have been really beneficial to have at least fake managed a law firm during law school.

Also, the saying “lawyers don’t do math” is a cliche for a reason. Handling our bookkeeping and banking brought me to tears more than once during our first year in business. Today, I have a decent system in place that keeps me off the ledge, most of the time. However, I can’t help but wonder if that Accounting for Lawyers class could have prevented a few painfully long partner meetings.

Participated in a Clinic

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Since I focused my courses and schedule around prosecutorial opportunities, I only participated in externships. When I graduated, I didn’t have much (read: any) experience managing case files or interacting with clients. I had never even put together a filing for court. I had to do many of these things right off the bat at my fellowship and I could see that my colleagues who had participated in clinics were much more at ease doing them than I was.

Participating in the fellowship for a year allowed me to pick up and practice many of these skills. However, my learning curve would have been much less steep if I had these experiences in law school. If you are considering opening your own law firm straight out of law school, be sure to participate in a clinic or two. I would also recommend other experiential learning classes that teach skills such as interviewing, counseling, and negotiating.

Explored a Joint Degree Program

Look, law school is verrrrrrrry expensive, and I am not suggesting that anyone needs to go into more debt. However, I do occasionally wish that I had explored the joint JD/MBA program offered by my law school. A joint degree program probably isn’t necessary if you plan to practice for a while before opening your business because you will get the hands on experience you need. However, I opened my law firm as a baby lawyer. I think the entire experience would have gone more smoothly if I had some basic understanding of and training in things like finance, marketing, and business operations.

Even if you aren’t going to do a full MBA, you might consider taking a few business classes at the local community college. At the very least, read a few business books and find some online resources.

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Today, you may not see yourself having your own practice. That’s okay. I still highly recommend you look into at least a few of these suggestions. Being my own boss could not have been further from my radar as a law student. As in, I could have easily been voted “least likely to open their own business.” Yet, here I am, using my law degree to do something I love every single day. The work is hard and my boss (me) can be really demanding. But I can’t imagine myself doing anything else and this moment would have come sooner, and with fewer tears, if I had been more prepared along the way.

Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at info@vincoprep.com.

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