Connecticut Law Tribune

It is the first week of the New Year, 2006,replica gold love necklace, and everyone needs a little inspiration to pursue their dreams. Every once in a while, it's more inspiring to read about real life solos with the same fear and anxieties as yourself, successfully venturing out on their own. Here are three favorite inspirational solo success stories.

A former student, Frank, is 36 years old, one young child, a wife who is well paid in the corporate world, and in his last year of law school discovers they are pregnant, again. He has ten years of experience in the lucrative health care market and upon graduation is offered a job with the state which he gladly takes because he is legitimately scared to be without a paycheck, even though I told him with his wife providing a steady income and insurance, with his professional experience and connections he will be profitable in no time. He, quite frankly,replica cartier love chain, is too concerned about "being without a job." Within a year, he calls me and tells me due to State cutbacks he's been let go and decides he "has no choice" but to start his own practice. With slow and deliberate care, initial lack of support by his spouse and no support from his family, he baby steps his way into opening his own practice, sweat breaking out on his brow, even afraid to tell people. Just as he is about to open his doors, his wife is laid off just three weeks after returning from her maternity leave. She receives severance which gives them a little financial breathing room. With no other options, Frank plunges full steam ahead into building his practice. His wife now joins him to help with the research, filing, telephones and calendars. Long story short, within six months Frank is on track to earn a full fifty percent more in his first year of self employment then he did with the State. The icing on the cake? The State looks to rehire him. Once paycheck dependent, Frank tells me he could never work for someone, again. The freedom he enjoys determining his own day, the balance in his personal and professional life, the unexpected pleasure of partnering with his wife (who is now thinking of going to law school) cannot be replaced by the false security of a paycheck even though he had been repeatedly told he must first start out working for "the firm."

Another favorite student, who ventured out on his own with another fellow student and with no help from me other than my class, did so right out of law school,replica cartier mens gold chain, and just 25 years old. His attitude was, "I have nothing to lose right now and everything to gain." He understood that once passing the bar the state says he is qualified to practice law and the state doesn't require an apprenticeship at a law firm for a number of years. He had full faith in himself and his partner and their ability to get the job done. They had no money and, are you ready for this, took free space in his father's building, literally a cleaning supplies closet, sharing their space with shovels and brooms and detergents, setting up their computer and telephone on a folding card table which they had to supply themselves. They signed up for every court attorney's list, met clients at the court house or the client's home. That was five years ago. Today he is married, purchased his first home in an upscale community, is established in a spacious and more appropriately decorated office, has hired associates and administrative help to assist with their burgeoning practice all while continuing to provide internships to Quinnipiac University law students to show them they can do it, too. His one wish, teach more about opening a practice in law school.

And one last favorite story is based upon an e mail I received June 11, 2004 from a former student, just 26 years old, who, too, hung his shingle the minute he passed the bar. This is the abridged version, but his words verbatim.

"As you may recall my original intention was always to go out on my own straight out of law school which I did. I was back in chambers waiting for my turn to speak with Judge Kavenewsky and the State's Attorney. The one thought which kept running through my head was what you told us in class. That, and that alone, was what helped me keep my composure. As it turned out everything went really smoothly. When I was leaving the court I did not think I could have felt better until, get this ( and I swear this is true!), I bumped into a kid who I went to law school with. He was always cocky about everything; his connections with New York City law firms, his grades, his BMW, etc. I talked with him for a few minutes only to learn he was still a TAC!"

Be inspired. Believe in yourself. Happy New Year.

I wanted to point you in the direction of blog post at Law Blog WSJ and the follow up which takes on the eternal debate as to whether the law is a Profession or a Trade? I took on this debate myself in The Connecticut Law Tribune last year:

You Say Profession, I Say Business. Can't We Just Get Along?

Connecticut Law Tribune 2006

I recently met a distinguished lawyer who pronounced at a seminar that he refutes and would handily dispatch anyone who subscribes to the philosophy "when you are a solo practitioner you are a businessperson." I was a little surprised and dismayed given that he is a very successful solo and thousands of solos have heard him speak through the decades. I decided to take the very challenge in this column because that attitude is what I believe is preventing a proper law school experience and stopping lawyers from venturing forth on their own.

The following definitions are taken from "Wikipedia."

Profession: An occupation that requires expertise or a high level of skill.

Business: a specific commercial enterprise or establishment. (Commercial : a money making endeavor that involves a corporation or other formalized group of workers and management working toward the production of goods or services to participate in an economy.)

By definition, then, isn't a law firm a "money making endeavor that involves a formalized group of 'professional' workers and management working toward the production of services to participate in the economy?" And can't the 'professional' worker and the management be one and the same individual, the solo practitioner?

"Professional" and "Business" are not mutually exclusive terms. Why do most lawyers and academia have a hard time wrapping their heads around this reality? Or better yet, why is there such an aversion to being identified as both a lawyer and a businessperson? Can anyone run a business but not everyone be a lawyer and therefore we must distance ourselves from the comparison? Is the managing partner of a law firm (large or small) somehow "less of a professional" because she dirties her hands with budgets, vendors, malfunctioning equipment and office space considerations in addition to litigation? Whatever the reason for the disdain it is a harmful mindset to instill in the solo. It is elitism dressed to the nines in arrogance.

Morality, desire to do good through use of your legal education and to honor the oath you have sworn to uphold, and a passion for justice do not suddenly disappear or become diminished because you simultaneously work hard at creating a thriving profitable business that enables you to live the way you choose as well as putting your children through college. Learning how to use an accounting system or maintaining a blog in addition to creating marketing campaigns to attract new clients doesn't make you less qualified to litigate a high profile murder trial or diminish your oath.

Therefore, in order to be a successful solo practitioner you MUST be both a highly skilled professional and a competent businessperson. I dare say you have to be even more gifted in a variety of areas than the average lawyer who becomes an employee in a mid to large sized firm. If you are not running your "legal services" business well it will fail and you will ultimately have to work for another. You will forego all the freedoms and privileges you came to enjoy as a solo. You can continue to be a professional but shackled to someone else's wrist for the rest of your legal career because you were not also a businessperson.

When academia does not recognize the need to teach the business side of being a lawyer, they are further encouraging employment versus entrepreneurship and failing to equip its students. Yes, this is a song I keep singing, but it is worth repeating and repeating until such time as the refrain runs in an endless and irritating loop through every Law School Dean's head until he or she can't hear it one more time. Maybe then the message will penetrate and every law school curriculum will finally require some form of business education prior to graduating law school.

Solos don't need to be experts in running a business but they need to be competent. And they should at the very least be provided some knowledge of the business side of running a legal practice while in law school; the basics of what will be required should they choose to be their own management while practicing their profession. So,replica cartier love pendant necklace, I ask you, "are solos professional businesspeople?" Absolutely.

Susan Cartier Liebel is solo practitioner, adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law and a business consultant for solo and small firms. No portion of this material may be copied, transmitted, posted, duplicated or otherwise used without the express written approval of Susan Cartier Liebel.

In my opinion, there is a major difference between a marketing plan and a leveraging plan. And the key to bringing in the most new clients at the lowest cost is knowing the difference between the two. For you, the solo, this knowledge can have a huge impact on your business plan and the manner in which you allocate funds and energies to attract new business.

While marketing in general is the method(s) by which we work to attract buyers of a product or service, for purposes of this column we are going to more narrowly define it. Marketing in the legal industry should be defined as direct efforts to attract those potential buyers of our services who have no prior knowledge of us or any connection to us in order to get them to try our services. Leveraging, on the other hand, is utilizing those who already know us to attract buyers of our product whereby the only connection the potential client has to us is the third party relationship.

When designing a business plan you should have a two tier plan for attracting clients.

One took place in New York. In McDonald v Pension Plan, 450 F. 3d (2nd Circuit, 2006), solo Edgar Pauk represented James McDonald in a suit against the longshoreman's union pension plan for improperly calculating the number of years in which he accrued benefits. Pauk prevailed and valued his work at $425 per hour. But the presiding judges (each presiding over different segments of the case) reduced Pauk's hourly rate to $325 and $390 respectively. The court applied a "blended hourly rate" which considers a law firm model of different level attorneys working on the case at different hourly rates.

Applying such a model to a solo was a first. Even though Pauk performed all the work, the District Court "analogized Pauk's situation to that of a large law firm" and "created the hypothetical 'Pauk and Associates' comprised of one experienced ERISA litigation attorney ($500 per hour) and a hypothetical group of inexperienced associates (less than $300 per hour) and decided on [his] own which tasks should have been done by respective members of the hypothetical firm."

This fiction was vacated by the 2nd Circuit for an incorrect application of a blended rate. In an unsigned opinion, the federal appeals court said, "there is simply no support for the proposition that a district court can decide what legal tasks could have been done by a hypothetical associate attorney working for or with Pauk in order to calculate a blended hourly rate of $390."

The panel, however, still approved the fee award with the hourly rate reduction, based on the trial judge's finding that Pauk was inefficient and "occasionally vexatious," and his performance, "though effective, was less than stellar."

Most interesting, though, was the 2nd Circuit noting that the lower court felt it was "of great significance" that Pauk was a solo practitioner, the implication being that he had much lower overhead. Even though the panel did not reject the trial judge's finding, it did state in a footnote "that district courts should not treat an attorney's status as a solo practitioner as grounds for an automatic reduction in the reasonable hourly rate."

"Indeed, it may be that in certain niche practice areas, attorneys of the highest 'skill, expertise and reputation' have decided to maintain a solo practice instead of affiliating themselves with a firm. The reasons for doing so may be numerous, including the inherent problems of high overhead, fee sharing and imputed conflicts of interest," that footnote stated.