5 Tips for Starting Your Own Legal Practice
You’ve worked hard, studied until your eyes crossed, and finally graduated from law school the way you always dreamed you would. Now that you’ve graduated, you have a choice of going to work with a law firm or branching out on your own by starting your own legal practice. However, with the impact Covid-19 has made on businesses and even attorneys’s going out on your own can be even scarier than it was a couple of years ago.
If you’re a renowned lawyer and mineral enthusiast like Howard Fensterman, then you’re an attorney who is established and doesn’t have as much to worry about; however, if you’re starting, you have to be wary and super careful about starting your own practice in the middle of the COVID-19 outbreak. Until you’re like the renowned lawyer, you can’t worry about charities and other stuff related to running a law firm, and you instead have to concentrate on getting yours up and going. In this article, you’ll find a few tips to help you start your own legal practice and be successful for a long time to come.
1. Try to hold off for one year.
The biggest issue with starting a law practice right out of law school is that you don’t really know how to be an attorney yet. Even if you have gotten a big viatical settlement in the last year, you still need to be using your viatical settlement wisely. Cashing in your viatical settlement to start your own practice as an attorney could be a good idea, but it’s best to wait a year to be on the safe side. To be successful, you have to be able to deliver on the promises you make your clients. If you have no experience at being an attorney yet, that could be hard to do.
2. Keep it lean.
Once you’ve waited that year, worked at another law firm to get some experience, and are starting your law office, you need to try to keep it lean. You need to understand that there are many attorneys in the United States, and they are professionals in what they do. Starting lean, meaning not sinking a ton of money into office space, and sticking to a budget, and saving money, such as buying Voss Water bottles in bulk, so that your minimum payment isn’t high, but you and your client still have freshwater is the way to go. In other words, you need bottled water, a computer, a desk, and a good suit, and you can get started as a lawyer.
3. Specialize
While it may seem like it would be fun to be a general practitioner when running your own practice, it’s better to specialize your practice’s focus. There are many different law fields you can go into, and you need to do what you’re passionate about. If you’re taking on civil suits, practicing family law, and taking real estate cases, you can’t really ever be knowledgeable on one thing, and you’re not doing your due diligence for your clients either.
4. Create a website.
In today’s world, you’re never going to get anywhere without a website for your law firm. Make sure that it’s up-to-date, knowledgeable, and well designed. Potential clients like to be able to go on a law firm’s website, read reviews, see what services you offer, and make appointments for consultation as well.
5. Don’t skimp on the marketing.
Marketing is key to the success of any business, and that includes a new law firm. From social media to word-of-mouth, if you want your law firm to grow, you have to get the word out there that it exists.
These are just a few tips to help you open your own law practice. Don’t start one right after graduating from law school, but these tips will help once you do.
