Small Law Firms

Please Solos: Don’t Play The Solo Card

It's not an excuse.

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Last week, this story made the rounds about a hapless attorney who’d appealed a contempt order issued against his client (who happens to be the subject of an investigation by Robert Mueller), and was forced to seek an extension of time to file the brief because his Microsoft Word program went south. On Twitter, commenters from legal tech gurus to legal writing instructors derided the lawyer as a pathetic incompetent who’d neither planned ahead nor mastered Word Processing 101. As for me… well, as a practicing lawyer myself, I sympathized because I know that sometimes, the best laid plans can go awry — particularly when those plans involve tables of contents and authorities and a word processing program that is mediocre at best.

That said, I was far less inclined to cut the lawyer any slack for his second grounds for an extension: his status as a sole practitioner with limited resources. Because apparently being solo excuses lawyers from delivering first-rate service to clients. This particular lawyer isn’t alone: a quick search of 2018 cases on Google Scholar kicked up more than a dozen cases where lawyers cried solo, urging that being understaffed or overwhelmed excused less-than-competent representation, late filings, or worse of all, failure to file an asylum petition. Needless to say, the excuses didn’t work. In fact, one bankruptcy court had harsh words for a lawyer offering solo status as a basis for a late filing:

Likewise, a solo practitioner with a heavy caseload does not excuse an attorney’s procedural failings in the handling of said caseload. The demands of a heavy caseload are within the control of an attorney. “[N]eglect is hardly excusable even if a lawyer is preoccupied with other matters.”

All of these cases are examples of what I’ve previously referred to as the solo card — and it’s not one that should ever be played despite the hand you may have been dealt. For starters, the solo card isn’t particularly effective. The rules of professional responsibility require all lawyers to provide competent representation without any exception or caveat.

But worse, the solo card also makes life harder for talented and qualified solos competing for cases against large firms. It’s already hard enough for many solo lawyers to compete against large brand name firms and it doesn’t help when word of solos falling short on the job due to size gets out. And while the majority of solos I know have several levels of backup in place along with access to armies of freelancer attorneys if needed, all it takes is a couple of bad apples to make things rotten for all solo lawyers. So the next time you think about playing the solo card, please don’t.

Carolyn ElefantCarolyn Elefant has been blogging about solo and small firm practice at MyShingle.comsince 2002 and operated her firm, the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant PLLC, even longer than that. She’s also authored a bunch of books on topics like starting a law practice, social media, and 21st century lawyer representation agreements (affiliate links). If you’re really that interested in learning more about Carolyn, just Google her. The Internet never lies, right? You can contact Carolyn by email at elefant@myshingle.comor follow her on Twitter at @carolynelefant.

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