Category: Getting Started

 

Before starting the post, I just want to acknowledge that a lot of these posts are likely mindless drivel.  That is what I get for setting a goal of writing 500 words every day.  I’m pretty sure that in a month or so, I’ll go back and figure out how to mark the most ridiculous posts so that they don’t need to be read.

And on with the show.  Today I had work to do, but also had to work on more promotion.  The Local Bar sent out a notice that they are opening up the Referral List for 2018.

Attorney Referral Services

Texas has rules about lawyer referral services, so the straight referral services that Texas lawyers can use are limited.  The State Bar of Texas has a good service that they offer, but it does’t cover Jefferson County.  Instead, the Jefferson County Bar Association has their own referral service.  I really like the people who run the JCBA (I’ve already mentioned how great they are), so I am ok with using them.

Getting on the list is pretty simple.  You fill out the forms and pay a fee.  The forms ask what areas of law you practice and ask you to agree to do 30 minute initial consults with people referred from the service for $20.   There are some terms and conditions, and a requirement that you are qualified to practice the areas of the law that you are signing up to represent.

I turned in the form and paid my fee, and the JCBA staff told me that my extra language would help me to get lots of referrals.  I guess there aren’t that many attorneys in the area that speak Spanish.  Also, they asked for forgiveness in advance because they are statutorily required to pass on all requests to three lawyers, and they know that a lot of the requests are meritless. I’m willing to take that chance.

Ad Litem Certificate

While I was at the JCBA office today, I also picked up my course packet to get my Ad Litem Certificate.  This certificate is required by the State to act as Guardian Ad Litem.  This was another fee I had to pay, as well as some videos I have to watch and some material to read.  It counts towards my CLE hours and will help get appointments to cases, so I was ok with it.

Expenses are adding up

I know that I am just starting my practice, and I budgeted for a lot of expenses in these first months, but I am looking at the money I am spending and it starts to worry me.  I keep meaning to do a post about all the expenses I’ve incurred starting my new business – I just haven’t yet because I think if I look hard at the numbers it will be a little overwhelming.

That said, I have gotten a lot more business than I thought I would for the first month of my practice.  I am really grateful for that.  Like I said in previous posts, letting people know that I am going out on my own has been a huge boon to my ancient practice.

Pretty soon I’m going to run out of things to talk about

It seems like I’ve spent a lot of time talking in these posts about what I am doing to market my business.  I guess that is probably fine, but once I get everything up and running I am going to have to search for more meaningful topics than what I did to look for new clients today.

The last post was about marketing ideas that I have already implemented into my practice.   Most of that stuff is pretty standard and needs to be done for any new business.  As a new practitioner, figuring out how to get new clients in the door is going to make the difference between being a successful solo attorney or starting to apply for jobs at law firms in a couple of months.

So, these are the ideas that I have been kicking around to start.   Some of them are things that I am ready to implement, some are things that I have to get comfortable with, and some are just Hail Mary ideas that I am not sure that I want to get involved with.

Planning to do, but haven’t started

Appointment Lists

The county I live in has no dedicated public defender system, instead it uses lists of private practice attorneys who are willing to take on court appointed work for indigent clients.  The lists that I know about in this county are basically broken down into criminal appointments, child protective services cases, and probate work.

Getting on the criminal and CPS lists are just a matter of taking a certain number of CLEs in the discipline and signing up for the list.

The criminal list is really multiple lists: adult misdemeanor, adult felony, adult appeals, juvenile misdemeanor, juvenile felony, and juvenile appeals. The first step to doing court appointed criminal work seems to be the adult misdemeanor list, which only requires that the continuous education requirement be filled.  The rest require a certain amount of time practicing law or certain experience drafting appeals.

The CPS list is similar in that it takes a certain amount of CLE hours to get on the list.  What I understand about the CPS list is that attorneys usually start by representing children in child welfare cases as the required attorney ad litem position, then after getting some experience in the CPS system can be appointed as parent’s representatives.

I’ve done the required CLEs for both of these and just haven’t made the time to get signed up on the lists.  Although the paperwork for signing up for the appointments list is all that seems to be statutorily required, it has been suggested by more experienced lawyers that I need to go to the courthouse and introduce myself to the Judges and their coordinators before I try to get this type of work, because although I may be on the list I can’t expect to be successful until I have the blessing of the Judges.  I really like the small town feel of our local legal system and want to respect its traditions – I’m not here to make waves or do things differently (in that aspect).  I’m hoping to get it together this week to go to the local courthouse and get some face time with the Judges and clerks.

Meeting CPAs and Financial Advisors

Another helpful tip I’ve been given is that I should network with CPAs and Financial Advisors.  These professionals work in areas that involve the law and many of them understand the need to refer out certain aspects of their jobs to attorneys to make sure they are not incurring any liability for unlicensed practice of law.

I was thinking of just making a list of local advisors and cold-calling their offices to see if they have a few minutes, but I got a good piece of advice the other day suggesting that I call, ask to talk to the CPA/Financial Advisor, and offer to take them to coffee to talk about how we can help each other.  This seems like a more fruitful method than just a straight cold-call.   I’m going to spend some time this week making a list of local professionals (I may include insurance agents and real estate agents on the list as well) and spend some time inviting them to coffee.

That said, I’ve also gotten a contact with a local CPA through a client I am doing some small business work for.  I’ve got plans to meet up with this CPA this week to talk about some of the work that we’ll be doing together, and I hope to make a pitch to him at the same time asking him to send some clients my way.

Flyers or Brochures

I’ve been kicking the idea around for a while of creating some flyers that talk about common immigration problems and kind of educating people on their rights.  I’d like to keep these flyers somewhat “educational” so that they aren’t purely advertising, but instead something useful that people might pick up and give to a friend that they know is in a situation that could use the help of an immigration attorney.  I really have to spend some time on this to make it the right product, but I really like the idea. My thought is that I’d create the brochure/pamphlet and leave them in businesses that are frequented by the type of people I see as being my client base.  This is something that I will probably spend some time doing in the next month, maybe over the Christmas holiday when I feel less likely to get any productive client work done.

Some Kind of Discount or Special Offer

Although it isn’t extremely common in the legal services business to offer “Specials”, I don’t think that my pride is going to keep me from doing so.  I’d like to come up with some sort of legal service offer that I can promote for the New Year, like “New Year, New Business” or “Get your New Year started right by starting to fix your immigration situation!”

That said, I might hold off on this idea until some sort of action is taken on the DACA (Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals).  This might be a great opportunity to create a timely discount package that my clients can really use.

Getting new clients is the goal

All of these ideas are just things that I’ve come up with spontaneously.  I will probably sit down after getting these things implemented and actually try to come up with some truly unique advertising.  I’ve read some books on Guerrilla Advertising and I might try some ideas based on those ideas.  I think the thing that I am concerned with most about alternative advertising methods is maintaining a professional look in my business while standing out as a different kind of legal services provider.

I’m open for business and have a few clients.  But a few clients isn’t enough.  And I feel like word of mouth isn’t going to be enough.  So, to boost my business and start getting customers in the door, I’ve been brainstorming ideas to try to get my name out.  I’ve already implemented some of these things, and some I am planning on trying in the next couple of weeks, and some I’m just kicking around.

Today’s post is going to be about things I am already doing.  I’ll post in the next few days about things I am planning to do and ideas that I am kicking around that may or may not come to fruition.

What I have already done to market my business

Website(s)

I’ve already got two websites up and have been updating occasionally. I should be doing more posting to those sites, but the problem I have with them is that writing blog posts that are actual legal articles take a lot more time than just writing about starting my new practice.  I need to start setting aside time each week to write a post for each of my law firm sites.  I say sites because I did one page in English and the other in Spanish.  I thought about just having the Spanish page be a translation of the English page, but then decided that I wanted to have different content for different languages (and targeted clients).

The English language site is at freimuthpc.com and I plan on using it to talk mostly about small business, wills and trusts, and real estate law.  I’ll put some immigration law articles on there, but I am not focusing the immigration law pages on my English speaking readers.

The Spanish Language site is at Setxlaw.com and I plan to use it to cover topics that I feel are most useful to my Spanish speaking customers.  Mostly immigration, but some small business and real estate law as well.  I really think that the business/real estate law section for the Spanish speaking clients will be successful because it is a neglected market, and I know of quite a few Spanish speakers that came to this country with nothing and have put together significant assets with hard work and frugal spending.   Nobody seems to be targeting these clients and I think I’d do well to try that group.

These pages are truly categorized as Lawyer Advertising, so as part of setting them up I’ve had to submit them to the State Bar of Texas’s advertising review department.  The State Bar wants to make sure that all lawyer advertising is not deceptive and follows all the ethics guidelines.  This is somewhat of a hassle, but I don’t want to get disciplined for advertising so I’ve done it.

Eventually, I’ll get these websites professionally designed, but for now I am just using a WordPress blog site with a nice simple theme.  Compared to a lot of sites on the web, mine are not amazing, but they are simple and get the job done for now.

Logo

I got on Fiverr.com and had a logo designed.  This wasn’t too expensive and I really like the way the logo turned out.  I got a couple of different versions of it made and I am happy with it.

Business Cards

I got some engraved business cards printed up by Hoban.  They are very nice, but a little costly.  They had a 2-week lead time from design to ship, so while I was waiting for those cards, I went to a cheaper printing site and got some standard cards printed up.  The difference in the quality is noticeable, but I am not unhappy with the cheaper cards.  I think both will have their place, because I have a lot more of the cheap cards so when I run out of the good stuff I will have some on hand to give out.  I really am embarrassed to be caught without business cards.

Church Bulletin

Every week at mass for the last 3 months I’ve noticed an empty space at the top-center of the advertising page in the church bulletin. I’ve thought for a while that the space would be great for lawyer advertising, and when I knew for sure I was going to be going solo I reached out to the company that prints the bulletins to see about getting the space.  It was available for a decent price, so I bought it.  They came up with an ad that I am really happy with.  I advertised small business, wills & trusts, and immigration law.  I’ll have to wait and see if anything comes from this, but I don’t mind buying advertising in this format.  There is only one other lawyer advertising in the bulletin and my ad is a lot nicer than his (because I have a nice logo).   I’ve talked to some other lawyers and none have ever tried this method of advertising, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get some business this way.

Talking About It

I’m not a great networker.  I am somewhat quiet and shy and don’t do well when I go to big networking events.  That said, I try to talk to people I do business with, especially those who seem to be doing a good job at what they are doing.  Being friendly and interested in other people’s businesses over the past few years has given me the opportunity to talk to them about what I am doing now.  When I was leaving my previous job and going around wrapping up my dealings in that capacity I talked to people about where I was going from here.  I’ve gotten a few clients already from just telling people that I am opening my practice, and referrals from people I’ve told as well.  I think being passionate about my new venture and willing to talk to people I already know about it has really helped.

Legal Insurance Service

I signed up with a legal insurance provider, TexasLegal.  I haven’t gotten any calls from leads from them yet, but its only been a week, so I am patient.  They offer lower fees than what I would like to be charging, but they do the hard part of getting the client in the door so I can accept that.  The other nice thing about using a service like this is that I bill the service, not the client, so I don’t have to worry about the client not paying me.  I’ll probably write a post entirely about the Legal Insurance Service when I start getting clients from it and have some experience with how it really works.  It sounds like a good idea.

Marketing will be a work in progress

When I find that things I am doing are working, I’ll keep doing them.  The things that I don’t think are bringing me business, I’ll probably stop doing.  This is a work in progress and I hope to keep going.