In this post I have decided that I will revisit the central question I have about starting my law firm, "How do I get clients to come through the door?"
Well, when I launched my law office last month I wanted to focus on online marketing for a few reasons. First it was cheaper than print advertising. Secondly, it has a broader reach than most print advertising, and thirdly, i believe that online marketing is the way of the future for attorneys and print methods of marketing are dead, or dying.
SO how has this worked out for me over the past 3 weeks?
Currently I have made a grand total of $35 dollars. I made this money drafting a homestead for a family member, a job that they could have done for free but they wanted to help me out so they offered $70 dollars for me to draft and record their homestead (in Essex County a Homestead has a $35 recording fee). I have received many inquiries from high school friends who discovered my law firm through Facebook or from a friend whom I am still in regular contact with. None of these inquiries have manifest themselves into clients.
I do have a consultation on Friday. The man and woman I am meeting with found out about my firm from a coworker who is the neighbor of my girlfriend's parents. Hopefully this consultation leads to a lawyer-client relationship.
I have been keeping myself busy and making a little bit of money working for other attorneys. In Newburyport I have been working with a local attorney as an independent contractor on some family law and collections cases. I guess, due to the nature of this employment it is business for my firm. I have also continued to work in Salem with a law office as a law clerk. My main reason for keeping this job is that it helps me stay busy and at 8-12 hours a week, it really does not interfere with my own practice. Hopefully there will be a day shortly when I can thank the attorneys at the Salem firm for all the help and support that they gave me and I can move onto working for myself without having a "day job."
....
Actually, the "day job" comment is something I would like to expound upon...
Some of you may know that I am a musician and booking agent who has been involved in the North Shore music scene for the past 3 years or so and I think that my current situation can be compared to that of a musician in a band.
Currently I consider myself to be a full time Lawyer even though I could not live on my own based on my Law Firm's income. Some look at my current position a lot like they look at my band, "why are you wasting your time doing this when you could go out and get a job working for somebody else."
I've always been a self starter and owning my own business has always been something I wanted to do. When I was 6 I would make folders and baseball cards to sell to parents and to other children at my after school program. When I was 20 I took over the management of my band and we started to actually get paying gigs. At 25 I decided that I had enough experience booking shows that I could work with other bands and help them book shows. All of these experiences have taught me something that I have used in the process of launching my law practice.
I hope that someday I can move on from being an employee in all senses of the word. First, to leave my "day job" which I use to help support my own business and later to move on from the everyday practice of law to managing the firm and having employees who do most of the "law" work. I know that this is a real long term goal and I also know that most who start their own law firm never make it to this level.
...
I also wanted to take a moment in this blog post to thank everyone who has been reading these posts. I know my readership is small but please understand that I appreciate all of the readers I have out there. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this blog. If you have anything you want to say to me feel free to email me, also please check out my firm's webpage, http://www.allisonlawoffice.com which is always under construction (I tend to find little things that I like to change from time to time, also I think I am just changing the same thing over and over at this point).
Until next time,
Kenneth C. Allison, Esq.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Goals
I wanted to open this blog post with a question. What is a good goal for income in 2011 for a new law office?
2011 will be my first full year in business. After talking with many local attorneys I have set my prices for my services. I will not post my prices online for 2 reasons. First, I am a new attorney and my prices currently reflect that. I do not want to find that years later someone found this blog post and generated an unreasonable expectation of what my current rates are based on what I was charging within my first full month of business. Second, I want to get clients to contact me, even if it is simply to ask what my base rates are. Note, I stated “base rates” different situations will require different rates, a will for a 20 something couple with no children is different than a will for a 69 year old man. The needs of these two parties will require different methods of estate planning and different considerations.
I’ve determined that people like round numbers. Therefore I will set the income goal for my business at a nice round $60,000. I know that my take home will be far less than this number, probably around $30,000 or so. This may seem like a lot to those of you who run your own business considering I will be liable for all my taxes, but I have managed to reduce expenses drastically.
First, I currently have no office rent expense. I have a conference room that I get to use free of charge. Second I own all my office furniture. I have a desk and chair at my abode and the office I am using has a desk, table and many chairs that I can use free of charge.
Third, I own my own computer, printer, cell phone, email and web site domain. These are all expenses that have monthly elements to them but I have the main expenses handled.
Massachusetts does not require that attorneys have Malpractice insurance. I would love to have coverage but I currently do not. This is an expense that I will have to pay in the near future to be taken seriously and to handle some specific types of work, mainly court appointed work.
Obviously I’d like to exceed $60,000. When picking $60,000 I included many factors, the type of work I do, the amount I charge, and the amount of clients I expect to have. I then raised the amount slightly to give myself a goal to reach for. I know that if I get lucky I could blow that goal out of the water.
I plan on evaluating and modifying my goals every quarter. Hopfully I can stick with this plan.
Building a solid foundation for my business is my first goal. If I can succede at that then I should still be here blogging about goals come December of 2011.
2011 will be my first full year in business. After talking with many local attorneys I have set my prices for my services. I will not post my prices online for 2 reasons. First, I am a new attorney and my prices currently reflect that. I do not want to find that years later someone found this blog post and generated an unreasonable expectation of what my current rates are based on what I was charging within my first full month of business. Second, I want to get clients to contact me, even if it is simply to ask what my base rates are. Note, I stated “base rates” different situations will require different rates, a will for a 20 something couple with no children is different than a will for a 69 year old man. The needs of these two parties will require different methods of estate planning and different considerations.
I’ve determined that people like round numbers. Therefore I will set the income goal for my business at a nice round $60,000. I know that my take home will be far less than this number, probably around $30,000 or so. This may seem like a lot to those of you who run your own business considering I will be liable for all my taxes, but I have managed to reduce expenses drastically.
First, I currently have no office rent expense. I have a conference room that I get to use free of charge. Second I own all my office furniture. I have a desk and chair at my abode and the office I am using has a desk, table and many chairs that I can use free of charge.
Third, I own my own computer, printer, cell phone, email and web site domain. These are all expenses that have monthly elements to them but I have the main expenses handled.
Massachusetts does not require that attorneys have Malpractice insurance. I would love to have coverage but I currently do not. This is an expense that I will have to pay in the near future to be taken seriously and to handle some specific types of work, mainly court appointed work.
Obviously I’d like to exceed $60,000. When picking $60,000 I included many factors, the type of work I do, the amount I charge, and the amount of clients I expect to have. I then raised the amount slightly to give myself a goal to reach for. I know that if I get lucky I could blow that goal out of the water.
I plan on evaluating and modifying my goals every quarter. Hopfully I can stick with this plan.
Building a solid foundation for my business is my first goal. If I can succede at that then I should still be here blogging about goals come December of 2011.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
early week update
I’ve spent the past two days doing work for other attorneys. First on Monday I was in Salem, Massachusetts where I spent the day working as a law clerk at my student job. The attorneys at the office know I am starting my own law firm and they are open to helping me accomplish this task. Both attorneys at the office have shown me the ropes and helped me as I navigated my third year of law school, studying for the bar, and waiting on my results. I still come in about 2 days a week for about 4 hours a day to help organize files, record documents at the registry of deeds and track mortgage discharges.
While in Salem on Monday an interesting event occurred a few doors down from the office. Around noon a prisoner who was transported to district court escaped and an hour long manhunt ensued. I was in the office when I heard the helicopters flying overhead and police sirens sounding. It was crazy to go to whdh.com and look at the live scene from the helicopter and see my car in the parking garage and see my office from the sky. Eventually the police found the guy, still in his shackles, and normalcy returned to Salem.
After working in Salem for the majority of Monday morning and early afternoon I returned to Newburyport where I met with an attorney who had a research project for me to conduct for his office. Tuesday morning I went to his office to conduct the research and apply the case law to the present facts of his client’s case. This is the kind of work that three years of law school prepares you for. It was nice to make a little bit of money doing some simple research work.
After which I went with the attorney to a bench-bar conference at Salem Probate and Family Court. The conference was interesting and I found that I recognized a few faces in the crowd from running errands around Essex County and from going to the registry of deeds. I did notice that I was the youngest in the room by at least 6 years. I wonder why more new attorneys were not in attendance. I was introduced to a few attorneys while at the conference by the attorney who invited me. Though I had little background on the issues discussed the attorney that I attended the conference with clued me into the issues and the motives behind the parties raising the issues.
When I got out of the conference I saw that I had a voice mail. The voice mail was from a friend who called to tell me that they had a few potential SSDI referrals. One should be calling me tomorrow morning and the other may call. I went to my email and discovered that another friend had a potential child custody referral. Though my practice does not focus on Family Law I have a strong background in the area of law both from prior work experience and from my family law course taught by professor Kindergren, the unquestioned expert on Massachusetts Family Law. I also had a surprise waiting for me when I got home tonight. I received a letter from the Board of Bar Overseers with instructions for registering and getting my bar card.
I will try to develop a regular posting schedule in the near future. Hopefully I will be able to post 2 times a week.
Until next time,
Kenneth C. Allison, Esq.
While in Salem on Monday an interesting event occurred a few doors down from the office. Around noon a prisoner who was transported to district court escaped and an hour long manhunt ensued. I was in the office when I heard the helicopters flying overhead and police sirens sounding. It was crazy to go to whdh.com and look at the live scene from the helicopter and see my car in the parking garage and see my office from the sky. Eventually the police found the guy, still in his shackles, and normalcy returned to Salem.
After working in Salem for the majority of Monday morning and early afternoon I returned to Newburyport where I met with an attorney who had a research project for me to conduct for his office. Tuesday morning I went to his office to conduct the research and apply the case law to the present facts of his client’s case. This is the kind of work that three years of law school prepares you for. It was nice to make a little bit of money doing some simple research work.
After which I went with the attorney to a bench-bar conference at Salem Probate and Family Court. The conference was interesting and I found that I recognized a few faces in the crowd from running errands around Essex County and from going to the registry of deeds. I did notice that I was the youngest in the room by at least 6 years. I wonder why more new attorneys were not in attendance. I was introduced to a few attorneys while at the conference by the attorney who invited me. Though I had little background on the issues discussed the attorney that I attended the conference with clued me into the issues and the motives behind the parties raising the issues.
When I got out of the conference I saw that I had a voice mail. The voice mail was from a friend who called to tell me that they had a few potential SSDI referrals. One should be calling me tomorrow morning and the other may call. I went to my email and discovered that another friend had a potential child custody referral. Though my practice does not focus on Family Law I have a strong background in the area of law both from prior work experience and from my family law course taught by professor Kindergren, the unquestioned expert on Massachusetts Family Law. I also had a surprise waiting for me when I got home tonight. I received a letter from the Board of Bar Overseers with instructions for registering and getting my bar card.
I will try to develop a regular posting schedule in the near future. Hopefully I will be able to post 2 times a week.
Until next time,
Kenneth C. Allison, Esq.
Friday, December 3, 2010
End of the Week Wrap-up
This week has been a very exciting week. First, my twitter account just eclipsed 100 followers. Hopefully some of you who have found this blog are reading it after hearing about it on twitter. I also received my first comment on the blog. Please, keep them coming; I enjoy reading what people have to say about my experience and I hope that someone out there will read this blog someday and avoid some of the mistakes that I am sure I will make along the way.
The real big development this week was that I managed to make my first fee as an attorney. True, it was for a homestead for a family member so I did not make that much money but it felt nice to get paid for something that was the product of 7 years of school.
I’ve also been in contact with Attorney Stephen A. Rosenbaum, an attorney in Newburyport that I interned for while in Law School and he had a few cases to refer to me. The cases run the gamut from collections, to family law, to social security disability. I am grateful for the assistance and having people who are there to support you is very important. If you are interested in checking out his firm go to http://www.srosenbaumlaw.com. He has been a great help to me over the past 3 years and he gave me my first legal job. I am really looking forward to a continuing working relationship with Attorney Rosenbaum.
I am also sending in an application to work as an Essex County Bar Advocate. Currently the program is closed but they are accepting applications. I am not holding my breath but maybe I can get into the program in the relatively near future.
I also have managed to get some work on my own, without the referral of an attorney. I currently have 3 will signings coming up. I hope to complete a few of these in the next week or so but likely one or two of them will be postponed until the new year.
In non legal news, an attorney friend and I are launching a blog on everything but legal and political topics. When that blog is launched I will make a note of it both here and on twitter so that you can check it out.
Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to read the blog and I would really like to thank everyone who has given me feedback and comments on the blog.
Until next time,
Kenneth C. Allison, Esq.
The real big development this week was that I managed to make my first fee as an attorney. True, it was for a homestead for a family member so I did not make that much money but it felt nice to get paid for something that was the product of 7 years of school.
I’ve also been in contact with Attorney Stephen A. Rosenbaum, an attorney in Newburyport that I interned for while in Law School and he had a few cases to refer to me. The cases run the gamut from collections, to family law, to social security disability. I am grateful for the assistance and having people who are there to support you is very important. If you are interested in checking out his firm go to http://www.srosenbaumlaw.com. He has been a great help to me over the past 3 years and he gave me my first legal job. I am really looking forward to a continuing working relationship with Attorney Rosenbaum.
I am also sending in an application to work as an Essex County Bar Advocate. Currently the program is closed but they are accepting applications. I am not holding my breath but maybe I can get into the program in the relatively near future.
I also have managed to get some work on my own, without the referral of an attorney. I currently have 3 will signings coming up. I hope to complete a few of these in the next week or so but likely one or two of them will be postponed until the new year.
In non legal news, an attorney friend and I are launching a blog on everything but legal and political topics. When that blog is launched I will make a note of it both here and on twitter so that you can check it out.
Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to read the blog and I would really like to thank everyone who has given me feedback and comments on the blog.
Until next time,
Kenneth C. Allison, Esq.
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