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I Got Bored Before Christmas and Signed Up For Unbundled Attorney

Although we had snow earlier this year, that kind of shenanigans is not typical for Southeast Texas.  For the years that I’ve been here Christmas has been chilly at most, and some years downright warmish. That said, the Courts are still closed and people are still more focused on their holiday preparations than getting any real work done.  I, on the other hand, feel more productive this Christmas season than I have in a while. I remember thinking last year that the majority of the month of December was a waste of payroll for the company that I left to start my law practice, because of everyone’s preoccupation with the holidays.  That said, as a new business owner, I am trying to make the most of the slow time.

Cranking up the marketing for the New Year

Yesterday (Friday the 22nd), I decided at about noon, after getting a message on LinkedIn from the salesbro from Unbundled Attorney about a new Unbundled Attorney podcast featuring someone I’ve corresponded with on LawyerSmack, and listening to that podcast, that I should probably pull the trigger on Unbundled Attorney to start the New Year.  So, I sent an email to Unbundled saying that we should do the deal, and an hour later the salesbro called me from whatever beach he was sitting on (I am pretty sure I heard seagulls in the background of the call).

I’ve said it before, I don’t always like salespeople, and some of the sales tactics this guy have used have bothered me in the past, but he offers a solid product and I don’t fault him for doing his job.  I’ve got to say, he knows his pitch and he does a good job wrangling difficult attorneys (imagine how much work it must be to convince naturally skeptical attorneys of the benefit of a service like this).  That said, once I had decided to just do it, despite my skepticism, a lot of what he said was useful.

You want me to what?

The sales guy told me we were going to role play a script, and I for 30 seconds I thought that he might be mistaken, but he gently convinced me that we needed to practice what I was going to say to prospective clients.  We went through it, and at one point he had to stop me and scold me for not following the script, but we got through it.  At the end of it, I felt better about the whole thing and I am pretty hopeful that this is going to work.

I committed to a larger geographical area than I originally wanted to, but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.  Originally, I only wanted to serve Jefferson, Chambers, Hardin and Orange counties, but the sales guy also convinced me to take on Galveston.  I objected to the idea at first because Galveston is practically farther than I’d like to go, even though geographically it isn’t that far – it just takes 2 hours to get there no matter how you go.  Sales guy suggested that I look into virtual office space and if I get multiple leads in Galveston I would just stay the night there.

What have I got to lose?

My initial hesitation and worry about this service still exists, but I have had a couple of conversations now with an attorney in Mississippi who has done very well using this system – she uses it almost exclusively for new business – and her story sort of inspired me to try.

I’ve also talked to an attorney who recently canceled the Unbundled Attorney services after about a week of trying it.  He didn’t have a great conversion rate on the leads, I think he got business from 2 of the 8 leads he paid for, but his ROI was still about 200%.  Unbundled Attorney itself, as well as the attorney I know who is happy with the service, both say that the typical conversion rate on leads is much higher than 25%, but even if I only make 200% ROI, I’ll probably be ok with the service.

Unbundled doesn’t require a contract, but they have asked me to try 15-20 leads before I make any decisions about the service. I was hesitant at first about this, but in the grand scheme of things, I don’t think 15-20 leads is unreasonable.  There are a lot of stories on the Unbundled site about successes by new lawyers with their services, so I’m hoping that I’ll have the same results.

New software service lead

One of the things that Unbundled suggested I try out for my practice was Lexicata, an automated intake service.  I like the idea of the service, and I hope I can make it work in my business regardless of whether I have a smash success with Unbundled. Lexicata lets me send intakes and retainer agreements to clients on their mobile devices, so no print-sign-scan-email process is necessary.  I really like this idea, and for what they charge per month I think the service will pay for itself.

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Getting Paying Work As A New Solo

The hardest part about being a new solo is sitting in my office thinking about all the ways I’m not making any income today.  The only way that I can get over that feeling is to try to do things that will bring in new work.  Blogging helps, but sometimes blogging doesn’t really feel like it is going to pay off.   So, I’m making a list of different sources of work that seem to work for other lawyers, or that I have been working on developing myself.

Court appointments

The first day I was a new solo I went to my local bar association window at the courthouse and talked to the wonderful bar staff there about getting started.  They gave me a list of the different courts that I should talk to and what I needed to do to get appointed to each.

Before getting getting on the appointment list at the probate courts, the civil courts, and the family courts for some cases, I needed to get my Attorney Ad Litem certificate from the Texas Bar.  The bar association offers the course and certificate for a discounted rate, and I was able to get the packet from them and get started on that.  The course is a 4 hour video course and some reading.  Once done with that, I submitted my packet to the bar and have to wait for the certificate.

I also was instructed to go talk to the family court judges and their staff.  I did that.  One of the judges asked me to sit in on his court for a while to get the lay of the land, and it seems to me that if a judge asks me to do something I probably should.  So I sat in on his court a couple of days.  It was interesting, to say the least.  I haven’t gotten an appointment from this yet, but I feel like it will probably happen soon.  The family court docket is pretty busy.

Next, I stuck my head into the office of one of the criminal court judges.  He welcomed me in and spent almost an hour explaining to me how things work in his court.  I was impressed with him, and I was very happy to have a judge that welcomed new lawyers to his court.  He also walked me into the office of the other criminal misdemeanor judge and introduced me to him, and his staff. Finally, and maybe most importantly, he walked me through the fee request motion so I could get paid.  After signing up, and spending a morning sitting in on criminal court, I received an appointed case yesterday.

Veteran’s Administration cases

You can also sign up with the Veteran’s Administration to do VA benefits cases.  If your VA cases go to appeal, you can apply for attorney’s fees under the Equal Access for Justice Act (EAJA) if you win the case (under certain circumstances).  These EAJA fees are statutorily set and based on cost-of-living adjustments, but the fee seems pretty reasonable.  I’ve talked to a couple of attorneys that are advocates of making money this way.

Lawyer referral services

I’ve talked about this before, but lawyer referral services seem like a worthy way to make money.  The Texas Bar has a service that offers referrals for a large part of the state, but my Local Bar does the referral service for my area.  I pay a yearly fee and agree to do $20 half-hour initial consults with prospective clients and then can charge them as I see fit from there.  I’ve heard that this system has its drawbacks, but I’m willing to try it out.

Legal insurance providers

There are various legal insurance providers set up around the nation that allow their members to pay a monthly fee to have access to a lawyer when they need them.  I signed up for this a month ago and have gotten one case out of them so far.  I’m only allowed to charge the fees that I agreed to at the outset of my relationship with the system, but income is income.  I’m using Texas Legal, but I know of others as well.

Lead generation

There are some decent lead generation systems that seem to meet with ethical requirements.  They charge a flat fee per lead they drop in your mailbox, and it is your responsibility to convert the clients.  I’m wary of these because I don’t know how well they curate their leads, but I know attorneys who have had success with these programs.  The one that comes to mind is Unbundled Attorney, which I have been flirting with signing up for, but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

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Disclaimers in Lawyer Advertising (In Texas)

This is a bit of a rant. And it certainly isn’t giving any legal advice.  Nor does reading this create any kind of attorney-client relationship.  Furthermore, I don’t claim to be an expert on Texas Legal Ethics, and have not been granted any special certification of ethics by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, the Pope, or President Trump.  And there are no fees attached, but if there were, I wouldn’t publish them because ethics.

Advertising rules are hard

The Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct are hard to follow, and I have a law degree.  I’ve spent my day reading through them and trying to make sense of the requirements.  They are pretty non-committal on what is and isn’t required.  The only true mandate that I can 100% say I believe to be objectively obtainable is the one that requires attorneys to send the Bar $100 every time they want to make a new advertisement.  The rest is really debatable.

Rule 7 of the TDRPC talks about advertising.  Summing it up, it says:

  1. Don’t chase ambulances (or, more generally, target clients because something has happened to them that they need a lawyer for).
  2. Be honest (do not be deceptive by commission or omission).
  3. Don’t say you “specialize” unless you have paid for your certification of Specialization (to the Texas Bar).
  4. Send the bar $100 each time you want to create a new advertisement*.

*Blogs are probably not advertising.  And “Tombstone Advertising”, ads that just have name, address, practice areas, and other identifying information are exempted from the $100 fee.

That is a huge simplification, but the rules have made me bitter

The rules have lots of if this then thats in them, and talk about required disclaimers without ever actually saying what the required disclaimers are, and constantly refer you to other sections of the rule.  I reread the rules multiple times, and got some secondary interpretations of them, and from what I can tell I am doing everything right with my advertising.  That said, I don’t like that the rules are as hard to follow as they are, because it seems like this should be easier.  I just want to get clients.

Required disclaimers

Like I said, the rules mention a need for required disclaimers, without explicitly saying what the required disclaimers are.  That said, I’ve been able to pick up the following:

  1. Disclose the location of your principal office.
  2. Disclose a lawyer who is in charge of your advertising (probably you).
  3. If you aren’t a specialist but advertise a practice area, maybe disclaim that you aren’t a specialist.
  4. If you commit to fees in your advertising, you have to stick with the fees you committed to.
  5. If you know at the outset of the advertising that there is a likelihood that you are going to refer work out that you get from the ads, you need to let the readers know.
  6. If you talk about past results, disclaim that your past successes don’t predict the outcomes of future cases.
  7. If your advertisement is in another language, then your disclaimers should be in the same other language.

This is a major simplification of the rules and if you just follow the rules above without actually reading rule 7 fourteen times, you are probably going to get disbarred.  But that is a decent summary for rant purposes.

The purpose of the rules is to protect the public

The idea behind the majority of these rules, apart from the “send $100 to your Bar if you want to advertise” rule, is that we sophisticated, unscrupulous lawyers need these rules opposed upon us to protect the unsuspecting public from our nefarious ways.  And I get that.  We have a whole lot of training and experience in crafting a message out of the truth that fits our needs, so I understand how we could use advertising to really dupe the consumers.  And I am all for protecting the consumers, without them we don’t have anything to do, like vampires and villagers.

That said, I think that the “send $100” rule is a little bit ridiculous.  We are expected to follow the rules, because if we don’t it is a disciplinary violation, so having us submit our advertisements to the Bar for review seems a bit like the Bar doesn’t trust us.  I, personally, am going to do my best to comply with the advertising rules because I am pretty pleased that I have a law license and don’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.

So, that means for now I am going to keep sending my lawyer advertising to the Bar for review, $100 at a time…

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Man Plans and Then Works On Marketing All Day

There is a saying “Man plans and God laughs”.  I had planned to get together with some other professionals today to do some networking.  This didn’t work out.  I didn’t feel like wearing a tie today, and its almost Christmas.  I still need to spend some time getting with other professionals, but with my new focus on the Spanish speaking market I decided that I should spend my day making a pamphlet to promote my services in Spanish.

Rabbit-holes everywhere

I don’t know if I was overthinking it, but I wanted to look into some theory about creating a trim-fold pamphlet before I got started.  Since there are basically six useable spaces on a pamphlet, I wanted to know where to put the critical content.  I really didn’t get any useful advice on that from any sources on the internet, but I just went with it.

Then, I decided I needed to look into marketing to the latino population.  There is a whole lot of content on the internet about marketing to latinos, but I realized that everyone basically referenced the same playbook and gave pretty nebulous advice about “market to the culture”.  I’m not sure what that means.

Then, I got sidetracked into a couple of Pew surveys talking about whether people of Latin-American decent prefer the term “latino” or “hispanic”.  I like latino more, but since I don’t qualify, I guess I was wrong – sort of.  According to Pew, people of Latin-American decent in Texas prefer the term Hispanic to Latino.  Or, more accurately, of those that prefer one designation over the other, the majority prefer Hispanic to Latino.  I’ll keep that in mind.

Then I looked into more pamphlet design theory, but really got no where.  So I looked at Pamphlet design software.  I have an Office 365 subscription, which includes MS Publisher for Windows, which would do a sufficient job for my purposes, but I don’t have a Windows machine.  So I looked at an Adobe Cloud solution, which was nice, but a little much for my purposes.  I ended up going for a Vistaprint pamphlet design template that allowed me to design the pamphlet online.

Writing “copy” is hard

I spent a significant part of the day trying to write catchy publicity copy that I could use for the pamphlet.  I am pretty happy with what I got down. It took a lot longer than I was hoping for, but it looks pretty good and I am excited to get this going.  Because of legal advertising rules, getting the right wording on the advertisement can be pretty tough.  I had to go to the advertising rules a couple of times so that I could make sure I wasn’t violating anything.

Strict bar rules

Now that the pamphlets are done, it is just a matter of waiting to get them and then starting to hand them out.  Well, not quite, I also have to translate them back to English and send copies to the State Bar for review.  This rules seems to be Texas specific, and is probably there to protect the public.  It isn’t that big of a deal, except the bar charges $100 for each advertisement they review.  I think that once I get the ads reviewed, I’ll have to hold on to the design for a while to get my money’s worth out fo the review fee.

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Target Area Marketing Plan

This post is basically pure brainstorming, so it might not go where I want it to.  I keep coming back to the idea that I want to target a specific kind of clients instead of targeting a specific area of the law.  I know that lots of people say that you should get into one practice area and get good at it, but I really am interested in serving a type of client more than a specific area.

Filling the need

I live in an area of Texas with a racial distribution of over 10% latinos, according to Wikipedia.  Now, according to the Texas Bar, 644 attorneys are active in this county.  The logic behind the next statement is probably easily arguable, but it seems that 10% of the attorneys in the area should be latino (and therefore, should speak Spanish).  That said, according to the local bar and to most of the other attorneys that I know, only a few attorneys in the county speak Spanish.

So, instead of targeting a specific practice area, I am really interested in just targeting the Spanish speaking community, since I am fluent in Spanish.  The abundance of Spanish speaking clients mixed with the dearth of Spanish speaking lawyers is a major draw for this client-base, but it isn’t the only one:  Spanish speaking clients are purported to pay on time, this is probably a huge generalization, but I am willing to believe it;  Spanish speaking clients are likely to tell their Spanish speaking friends about the great Spanish speaking lawyer they found; and, (another generalization) Spanish speaking clients probably are pretty decent people who have run into a little problem they can’t solve themselves.

Client base decided, now what?

That is the rub.  Now that I have picked the client base, I have to figure out how to get my name out there.  Like I mentioned previously, once I start getting a few Spanish speaking clients, I’ll probably get more by word-of-mouth, but how do I get the original set?

Some ideas I’ve had are:

  1. Flyers

    My wife, a Spanish speaking Latina, keeps suggesting I come up with a flyer of some sort to leave in the Latino-owned businesses.  I like the idea, but I struggle with what the content needs to be.  Although I am not Latino, and don’t appear to be Latino, publishing that my first law license is from Mexico and that I speak Spanish will help.  Not only that, I probably need to summarize the areas that I think are going to be the most useful and talk about the struggles that people may face in their daily lives, but I need to talk about them in Spanish.  This option is probably the one I need to try first, because I think it is going to be relatively the cheapest.

  2. Radio Ads

    There is a Spanish speaking radio station locally that I think will help to advertise.  I need to come up with a decent ad and try to record it in Spanish so that I can get it broadcast on the radio.  This is going to be a little more expensive, but I have heard that radio is a pretty effective media for publicity.

  3. Presentations at civic organizations

    There is are a couple of Latino civic organizations locally.  I think I might try to give some talks to those on an area of the law that affects the Latino community.  I immediately think of immigration law, but I think that focus may be shortsighted, this community needs a lawyer that can help in all areas of the law, not just immigration.  Also, I think I could advertise with the Catholic Church that is predominantly Spanish speaking – I have an ad in my own church’s bulletin and wouldn’t mind doing the same with the church down the road (although I have yet to see any result from my church bulletin).

I’m going to keep looking for different ideas that might help to break into this area, but I am also confident that word will get around.  Because I am on the court appointment lists, I will get clients who are Spanish speaking through those, and those people will tell their friends and relatives that they know a Spanish speaking attorney.

I probably need to keep working on the idea, but the more I dabble in different areas of the law the more I begin to think that General Practice is really right for me.  Now I just have to get good at everything.

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More Shameless Self Promotion

 

The New Courthouse AdditionBefore 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.

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Networking Is Not Going To Bar Socials

I am largely socially awkward.  I have a hard time with small talk, as a matter-of-fact, it annoys me.  I occasionally drag myself to networking events and I always feel like running away from the people there, screaming.  I’ve accepted these things as truths in my life and I’m not sure there is ever going to be anything I can do to change them.

That said, I can talk to a group easily and be engaging and funny.  I can even sound authoritative about things that I really know fairly little about.  Again, I’ve accepted these things and worked these personality characteristics in a way that has suited me.

That said, 100% of the business I have gotten in my new practice has come from referrals.  And not really even referrals from people who think that I know what I am doing, but people who care about my business succeeding and who find it advantageous to refer people to me.  Heck, I’m usually pretty honest with everyone that I don’t feel 100% comfortable with what I am doing, but I always express to them that I know I can work through it if they are willing to give me the chance.

It’s about who you know

The people who have sent me referrals are people who I have gotten to know through some professional or personal group that I am involved with, but not groups that I am involved with for networking reasons, but groups I am involved with for actual interest in being in the group.

I’ve gotten referrals from people I know through my previous job. They know me and know that I put a lot of effort into becoming a lawyer and want to see me succeed.  They know that I am brand new and don’t know a lot about the areas they have referred me out in, but they know that I’m going to do my damnedest to do a good job.

Being genuine and honest has been a lot more beneficial to getting people to trust me as their lawyer than going out specifically to meet new people to get business.  I don’t know that meeting people with the sole purpose of getting new business is really ever going to work for me.  It might be a self-fulfilling prophecy issue, where I don’t believe that meeting people to get business is genuine, so when I meet people in that kind of environment I don’t come off as genuine.

Associate with like minded people

I’m interested in real estate investing, so I joined a real estate investing group.  I didn’t do it because I wanted to get real estate investor clients, although that isn’t a bad result, I joined because I wanted to learn how to do what those people are doing.  I go to the group, ask lots of questions, and am available to give my opinion on things when asked.  I try really hard not to disagree with people when I they say something that isn’t legally accurate.  From being part of this group I get people who want to use my services because I am like them.

I go to church because it seems like the right thing to do.  The church community is a warm, comfortable place for me and I meet people there who I get to talk to about things that we both believe in.  My church community wants to help me succeed because they believe in me as a person, not because they think I’m a spectacular attorney.

This kind of networking works for me.  By no means am I suggesting that these would work for everyone, because other people have different interests and going to a group just for the networking opportunities seems false to me.  But, I really have seen amazing benefits from just being part of different groups and letting those people know what I am doing with my life and letting them know that I’d appreciate their help with my success.

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Marketing Ideas

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

The day I received the actual license

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.

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Marketing Ideas So Far – Things I am doing now

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.