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SURVIVING A SOLO PRACTICE

BY Mark Melrose;

Winter 1996

North Carolina State Bar Journal

Editor's Note: Surviving a Solo Practice is the first of four articles prepared for this issue which recount the experiences of attorneys who were admitted to the practice of law within the last few years. We hope you find their observations enlightening as they discuss the value of law school, their expectations of the practice of law, and their perceptions of the practice today.

Although opening a solo law practice may cause an exacerbation of any preexisting emotional disorders one might have, it can also be the key to practicing law the way you imagined it when you sat through that first somewhat disturbing law school class. This article will hopefully inspire some of you to strike out on your own, just as it may cause others to appreciate some of the simpler things in life such as a regular pay check.

After law school I took a job as an associate to an attorney who had been practicing in Sylva for about thirty years. Sylva is a small town about forty miles west of Asheville in Jackson County that borders the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. At the time I arrived in 1990, we had about the same number of attorneys as auto parts stores in town, which I suggest is a relatively good guidepost to those in the legal profession seeking to relocate. If the ratio of auto parts stores exceeds the number of attorneys, then the area can stand a few more lawyers before legal cannibalism begins to occur with any regularity. There is also a more controversial relationship involving the number of pizza places, but it lacks significant scientific confirmation.

The year and a half I spent as an associate in this general practice is probably the minimum length of training that one should absorb before thinking about printing your own business cards.

Years ago law students were trained as apprentices to seasoned attorneys. Unfortunately, that practice has faded away with new Juris Doctors filled to the brim with the intricacies of such things as the twenty-four hearsay exceptions under Rule 803, but who unfortunately have no idea how to serve a complaint upon a defendant. Without this mandatory period of apprenticeship, new graduates should impose this requirement upon themselves. This training can take place just about anywhere that is associated with the type of law you think you will enjoy practicing. From a purely practical standpoint, this period can also be spent making contracts in the community and evaluating the unique characteristics of the local bar.

Opening your own office is not such an overwhelming process if you have already practiced in the community for at least a couple of years. By then you know which judges are more likely to convict your client, which clerks will call you if they see your case on the calendar without your lawyerly presence, which lawyers will stab you in the back if they see any skin exposed and which lawyers will call you before they file an entry of default against your client. It is very reassuring to be able to pick up the phone and call a lawyer friend for help when you open some mail addressed to your new post office box only to discover a pleading clearly addressed to you, but which contains several Latin phrases not found on the bar exam (eg. nunc pro tunc).

If you have practiced elsewhere and have decided to move into a legally underdeveloped community, keeping in mind my recommendations about location, I would strongly encourage you to seek out a benevolent attorney who will share a little bit of his or her wisdom. The North Carolina Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division provides referrals to attorneys willing to act as mentors to both new attorneys and new solo practitioners. As we all soon learn, most of what attorneys do on a daily basis is not found in Strong's or West's North Carolina Digest. We need to know what fees to charge, how to juggle conflicting court schedules, what books or CD-ROMs to buy, and what to wear to the Christmas bar party. Even after practicing for just three to four years, I found that I was able to answer questions from new attorneys which saved them a tremendous amount of time and sleep deprivation. A good mentor is a better investment than anything else you could put in your new office with the single exception of a legal secretary who knows more than you do.

After you have determined your location and your mentor is in place, it is time to set up shop. Before I opened my office, I created this wonderfully intricate business plan with the help of a business counselor that projected my cash flow and expenses for the rest of my prospective legal career. Although there were some flaws in this plan, it did provide a framework for my practice.

I opened my office 1992 with a $10,000. loan at a criminal interest rate--two rooms on the second floor of the "Downtowner" Office Building, three chairs, a desk, a phone, a computer system, and miscellaneous office supplies. The Downtowner is a World War I vintage establishment with exposed plumbing in almost every room from its era as a hotel. I decided to put my office in the corner location since there was no visible sink in that room. The loan enabled me to purchase the equipment and furniture and gave me a cushion of income and rent for a couple of months.

I began with no secretary since I initially considered that to be a luxury. Also, my business plan indicated that a secretary would not be essential until the third month. Instead, I opted for this technologically challenged talking phone that was advertised to do my business while I was away.

The issue of support staff is critical towards developing the type of practice you imagine. There are still several attorneys in town who make a respectable living without the benefit of a secretary. They probably purchased a better telephone than I did and are able to keep their overhead very low. They do their own typing and mailing and answer their own phone calls. This approach seems to work well for them, but it was not an option for me. I made the fateful decision to leap from self-employment to employer after I returned from a particularly grueling day of court-appointed work in district court only to discover sixteen messages on my talking phone. The most disturbing messages were from the callers who hung up, since I was convinced that one of them must have been from the relative of someone struck down in the prime of his or her life while walking in a crosswalk in blaze orange clothing by the drunken driver of a multinational corporation. I placed an advertisement for a secretary the very next day.

Being new at the role of employer I hired the first prospective secretary who was brave enough to negotiate the double flight of cement steps to my office. I strongly suggest hiring an assistant who has more years of legal practice than you do. A good assistant will probably be more aware of how to prevent the various malpractice pitfalls than a junior associate in some of our state's larger law firms. I also recommend keeping close track of your money, which isn't hard at first since there is very little of it. Nevertheless, as you practice prospers, consult with a good CPA and establish a workable accounting system which will also protect you from employees who decide that you make too much money and they deserve a larger share of it than you deserve to know about.

There are a number of good computerized bookkeeping programs that are certainly more efficient than the first CPA I had the misfortune to hire. Never retain a CPA who wears an inordinate amount of gold jewelry because someone has to pay for it.

I think it is essential to make an honest evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses. For example, like many attorneys, the extent of my mathematical capabilities is severely taxed when I accompany a group of attorneys out for lunch and we attempt to divide the check with some basic relationship to what we actually ate. Other attorneys may have no experience with computers, or they may despise performing legal research. When working alone, you must not be afraid to pay someone for the work that you are unable to perform effectively. Just because someone is a brilliant attorney does not necessarily mean that he or she will be an equally clever businessperson.

Contracting legal research to people who actually enjoy doing it can be quite cost effective, and you can save yourself a phone call to the claims repair person at your malpractice liability carrier. Practicing law alone has no relationship to the number of other professionals who are available to provide quality services to your clients. Saving money on overhead is important but wasting a week trying to unravel the mysteries of your discount computer is not a very cost-effective way of running a business.

The solo practice of law in a small town has had its share of surprises. When I decided to strike out on my own, I was somehow able to convince my wife that I would work fewer hours and make more money. While the financial picture gradually improved, one workweek often seemed to flow seamlessly into the next. When work needed to be done, there was no one else to do it. On the other hand, when a case went well, I could accept the credit. No two days are ever the same. I have had both parties to a custody action attempting to retain me at the same time on separate office phone lines. I have worried about a client who killed his best friend in anger and about a newspaper carrier who was injured by a drunk driver. Just today I had one phone call from a woman concerned about a sixteen-year old beagle who would not stop howling or harassing the neighbors, and another woman named Beagle with a criminal charge completely unrelated to domesticated animals.

A wonderful benefit of being a self-employed attorney is that you can decide what type of cases you will accept and what type of lifestyle you will accept and what type of lifestyle you will enjoy. No one can criticize your decision to devote dozens of hours in pro bono work, nor can anyone be critical when you leave the office early to be with your family without having to gain clearance from a senior partner. Certainly, there are some limitations on what type of work you can handle alone, but other attorneys are always willing to associate with you on just about anything imaginable. Currently, I am associated with a law firm in Raleigh on a complex medical malpractice case. The client is local and came to me for help, but I had neither the financial reserves nor the experience to represent the family effectively by myself. Other solos in the area regularly associate attorneys in bankruptcy, tax, immigration, and other specialty areas of practice. Simply because an area has a relatively small population does not mean there is any limitation on the types of cases that will appear in your waiting room. Although you will not be able to survive exclusively on employment discriminations at first, you will eventually receive an inordinate amount of these cases from other attorneys who recognize your expertise despite your lack of a law firm name that takes thirty seconds for the receptionist to recite.

Practicing alone puts you in touch with people and with the most intimate details of their lives. Often we forget that although we have done hundreds of custody cases, this is our client's only child. Or we forget in the weekly struggle to make a living that the decisions we make during a single telephone call will have a lasting impact on someone we barely know. Sure, the practice of law must be a business, but it must first be a profession. Attorneys in small town like Sylva have a camaraderie that others tell me is lacking in some of the bigger cities. Of course, it is more difficult to escape the scrutiny of seasoned attorneys in a small town, but perhaps that is as it should be. Solo practitioners often have little other than their reputations upon which to make a living. Perhaps they guard their reputations more closely as a result.

My practice has gradually changed considerably over the past several years. I still work in the same small town, but now I have two associates and four support staff. Although I chose this path, some of the same attorneys are still in town running solo practices with no desire to change. One does just real estate, another does criminal work, and another exclusively represents the guardian ad litem program as its attorney advocate. Yet each has a boss thy can tolerate, a lifestyle they have created, and only the clients they chose to represent. What more could you ask for?