Revisiting the all important question "How do I get clients?" and other musings

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."

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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.

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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.