The Many Demands of Solo Practice

The other day I was telling a colleague about the lives of the lawyers who attend our monthly Solo Practitioners Forum. In the process, he and I both realized that running a solo practice requires a surprisingly long list of skills. Some of them are:

· Legal/Intellectual – this goes without saying, and calls upon much of what you learned in law school and in subsequent reading and continuing education, but no one can know it all. A major problem arises when lawyers, not recognizing their limits, fail to ask for guidance from someone who knows more about a particular subject.

· Accounting – unless you have paid staff, you have to log your time spent, bill your clients, and keep track of where your accounts stand. I can’t tell you how many lawyers I have met who are months behind in billing. For some of them, it’s because they are uncomfortable asking for money, especially from clients they know are far from well off. (Naturally, this is easier when someone else asks on your behalf.) They may feel a degree of shame for billing for services that were, perhaps, not delivered in a timely fashion. Or they may just have a brain that is allergic to columns, rows, and figures.

· Marketing – there may have been a time when just being a competent lawyer would eventually create enough word-of-mouth referrals, but that is no longer enough. Aside from CPCS as a ready source of (low-paying) referrals, the solo practitioner must figure out ways to get business. For most, it’s uncomfortable and oh-so-avoidable to contact people asking them to send business your way, or, for example, to do public speaking or spend a bunch of money on ads.

· Interpersonal – a slew of interpersonal skills are required to know how to deal with a variety of clients with different personalities, not to mention legal adversaries, judges, clerks, etc. – each of whom calls for a different approach. It helps to be able to read body language, discern unspoken agendas or expectations, etc., and to consciously manage your own reactions to individuals who “press your buttons.” Some practices call for evolved skills in negotiation or persuasion. And some clients behave in ways that require diplomacy in the form of clear limit-setting so as to avoid burning out or losing your temper.

· Organizational – in order to make a living, any lawyer has to be relatively efficient and productive. Most clients would not care to pay for your hours spent in reverie, even if you are finding parallels between their case and your readings of Proust, never mind Facebook. So you need to schedule yourself, keep yourself motivated, keep on top of deadlines, and prioritize tasks by importance, urgency, etc. Those who work at law firms have others around, and to whom they answer, to notice if their noses veer from the grindstone, or if they are putting undue work into matters that don’t demand it, or if they are taking too long to get back to clients, but those in solo practice must be their own overseers.

I’m sure that there is much more, but it becomes obvious how many skills and tasks must be juggled in order to carry on a solo practice. In order to thrive, and stay out of trouble, it is important to be aware of how you are doing on each dimension – few people could be adept at all of these functions. Identifying real deficits in any of these areas calls for action, such as delegating some tasks or getting further training or coaching for yourself. Those who attend our Solo Practitioners Forum use the opportunity to clarify, vent, brainstorm, and seek solutions. But that group is not always the right option for the lawyers who come to us for assessment; sometimes the thing that helps most is a referral to, for example, an organizational coach, mentor, or counselor. We also frequently refer to the Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP), which is funded by LCL. It makes sense for practitioners to make use of such resources when you realize just how demanding and multifaceted a job they face.