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GPSolo Magazine - January/February 2004 For ten years I was one half of a popular, lucrative general practice firm whose “criminal” foundation was a thriving DWI practice in what was then a small town. The civil core of our cases ran the gamut of expected matters: personal injury, workers’ compensation, domestic relations, estates, Social Security disability, landlord/tenant, consumer law, and the assortment of civil cases that don’t fit neatly into any category. I had come to the practice after working in two legal services programs, one small and rural, the other large and urban, and I had specialized at both. Despite my futile protests, my new partner turned no case away and demanded I do the same. Every day was a struggle, but I imagined that after a few years, I would have been exposed to enough types of cases that they would become familiar and I could handle them with the same ease I felt after six months in a legal services specialty area. After about a year, when we were both working late in the office (my days routinely started at 7 a.m. and ended about 10 p.m.), I watched a law book come flying out of my partner’s office door and heard him yell, “Can’t I ever get the same case twice?” My heart sank—he’d had a general practice for 15 years. Increasingly, though, we did specialize—in a manner of speaking. He handled most criminal law matters and the associated motor vehicle hearings, leaving me with all the varied civil work. This didn’t seem much like specialization to me, and I felt more and more burdened as the practice grew. We hired a part-time attorney, who worked for the government days and for us at night, to handle the non-litigation work and some of the paperwork associated with our litigation. Although this proved helpful, it still wasn’t adequate, and we added another attorney to co-counsel on many of the civil cases headed for trial. After several years, three lawyers with their own practices were co-counseling with us. The issue of diversification, though, was a constant battle between my partner and me. My partner’s point (and I see its validity quite clearly now that I’m on my own) was that clients prefer a full-service practice; if you refer clients to another lawyer for their workers’ comp case, they may stay with that lawyer for their DWI. Also, a diversified practice ensures a steadier income stream. Certain types of cases recurred at specific times in the year: We looked forward to settling our personal injury cases in November and December, when insurance companies were closing their books but few clients wanted to spend holiday money on a lawyer. In January and February we had a flood of domestic relations cases from people who had stayed together through the holidays “for the sake of the children.” March, April, and May brought income tax refunds, and throughout spring, summer, and fall clients had money from construction and farm work, all of which people used to pay for non-contingency civil cases and criminal cases. This work fell off during winter, when personal injury settlements picked up again. During rough economic times, we had an increase in workers’ comp and bankruptcy cases that helped offset the loss of criminal clients who instead turned to public defenders. My decision to practice only criminal law came slowly after the partnership dissolved. I realized I wouldn’t be able to handle as many “big” cases and appeals as I previously had and still make a living. I might have decided to concentrate on workers’ comp or bankruptcy cases and gone to a volume practice in those areas, but I simply wanted as little paper and as much litigation as possible, and that meant criminal law. My decision to de-diversify was primarily personal. The benefits from having practiced in many areas, though, are substantial. Knowing there were other areas of law in which I felt comfortable did provide some security. It also helped that I could provide additional services to clients in conjunction with their primary matters, for example, preparing a power of attorney for an incarcerated client. Clients also ask general questions, and it’s helpful to have at least working knowledge of other legal fields, if only to make the correct referral or know whether a referral is indicated at all. I don’t believe this is essential, though; some of the best criminal defense lawyers I know have never practiced anything else. Practice diversification comes up more often in the civil arena. Although it’s possible for one person to handle a variety of tort-related work, such as personal injury, intentional torts, and constitutional torts, it becomes increasingly difficult to also handle domestic relations, bankruptcy, workers’ comp, consumer law, and real property issues—and to handle them all well. The toll for keeping up is enormous. Some lawyers need to have a general practice because of location. My former law partner opened a practice in a small rural town, which necessitated a general practice, but the town grew quickly, and the increase in population made a limited practice feasible. It’s also possible to cover a larger territory if the lawyer is willing to travel. I have three offices in different towns (two offices are interview-only) and routinely go to court in six different counties. I would rather do this than diversify my practice, but the choice was not a simple one. For obvious reasons, it’s considerably easier to limit your practice than to expand it. Before you make the decision to de-diversify, you already know where most of your money is coming from, but you have no prior track record when you decide to expand. Expansion also might bring about staff increases, which could affect the time you spend managing instead of lawyering. What worked in my two-person firm was arranging co-counseling with lawyers who had experience in the areas where we needed help. We generally divided costs and fees, which lightened the burden considerably for contingency cases with expensive costs. The other advantage to co-counseling is that you can gauge the results before making the commitment of additional staff, office space, and equipment. Even with only one practice area, my preference still is not to hire other lawyers. Friends urged me to do so when I started turning down work, but I didn’t (and don’t) want the downside of having someone on salary during the inevitable slow periods. Instead I worked out an arrangement with a lawyer who needed work: I interview clients, work up the cases, and pay her a flat fee to go to court. On the other hand, a lawyer I know who went from a general civil practice to a criminal practice about the same time I did hired five lawyers and grossed half a million dollars last year. (Amazingly, we compared actual net incomes, and they weren’t much different. But I went home at 5:00, while he stayed at the office to deal with management issues.) In the final analysis, the decision is a matter of your geographical location, financial expectations, and personal preferences. It’s unlikely to be economically feasible for the sole practitioner to limit a practice to workers’ comp cases in Butte, Montana, but Baltimore is another story. My suggestion is that a fallback area can provide a measure of economic security through changing times and market conditions. Judith Stainbrook is a solo practitioner in Carroll and Queen Anne’s Counties, Maryland, concentrating in criminal law. Her practice includes:
===================================================== Comfort – a ‘Bench’ mark for Court Attire? - By Judith Stainbrook I started practicing law in the early 1970s in a small legal services program in upstate New York. We were the delayed wave of sixties lawyers who had brought the concept of law reform to the forefront. My managing attorney was trying hard to bring some respectability to our office by overcoming the unwashed radical image that had somewhat tarnished the office. Its founding fathers had gone to court wearing tee shirts that read “F*** the Establishment.” As part of that clean-up effort, the men kept sports coats in their offices to wear with their blue jeans if suddenly called to court, or they sent me, the only woman lawyer in the county, because I always wore a skirt and skirts were presumed to be safe, on women anyway. Who knew? In those days it didn’t occur to me to wear a suit to court. Later, when more women began to enter fields that were traditionally male, we heard about “power dressing.” After that I deliberately avoided suits since it seemed to me that dressing like a man was not exactly the way to achieve equality with them, and that women could feel they had truly arrived when men began clamoring to wear skirts. It was, therefore, with shock that I read, and not so long ago, women lawyers were being chastised by some judges, both male and female, for wearing pantsuits to court. How much closer could they get to dressing like men? And yet pantsuits on women were considered too informal for court, while still de rigueur for men. Now during the sweltering summer on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, it is not unusual to see women in black suits (both with skirts and with pants) while the men more comfortably dress in lighter colors, and often sports coats, not suits. Other than women, the only person in black is the judge. And I wonder. Different people are comfortable wearing different things. A court uniform saves time otherwise wasted wondering what to wear. If you spend considerable time in the courtroom (and maybe several courtrooms in different locations on the same day) you might be as concerned about your personal comfort as you are about the judges’ perception of your clothing. Several years ago one of the public defenders wore a pedometer to work. Her office was next door to the courtroom yet she clocked three miles between the time she got to the office at 8:15 a.m. and the time court started at nine. She always wore flat-heeled shoes to court, and so do I. Not long ago I was chastised by a female judge for wearing snow boots to court, although it had snowed. I could have changed in the car, she told me, ignoring the reality of a large parking lot between my car and the courthouse. Now, for her—and only her—I change into my flat-heeled shoes in the courtroom, but not in the car. In contrast, I once did an emergency hearing in a sweat suit and running shoes. The judge appeared to not even notice, though it was certainly not courtroom appropriate. While not advocating a return to the days when lawyers wore descriptive tee shirts to court (and apparently got away with it), I do believe in wearing what makes you comfortable. For some, that will be power suits. I personally regret it won’t be sweat suits. ===================================================== Making Crime Pay: Tailor Your Practice - By Judith Stainbrook GPSolo Magazine - Fall 2002 When you find yourself grateful that your pager went off only three times during Thanks-giving dinner and that you average four hours sleep a night, it's time to make a change. As a solo in a rural county, I had a "general" practice-meaning I took everything that walked, crawled, or fell through the door. I'd inherited the attitude from my former law partner, who thought it was the only way to survive. After we separated, I continued the approach despite the fact that Timeslips showed my main source of income was criminal law. Finally, I opted to change. First to go was domestic law, which took the most work with the least return. When I told my staff, they worried that my calendar would be empty. With more calm than I actually felt, I said, "Yes, but my income will remain the same." In fact, it went up. And I was getting more sleep-up to five hours! I took on the "big" civil cases that I'd given up when I went solo, but my bottom line still showed that criminal law was my bread and butter. Plus, I found that I really enjoyed courtroom work more than paperwork. But how was I to set up a criminal practice? Leave my cards in bars? Advertise on restaurant placemats or in the expensive Yellow Pages? What? I knew that "letter lawyers" were common, but it never occurred to me to try a direct mail campaign until a lawyer friend suggested it. He'd developed a very successful criminal practice from direct mail and offered to send a trial run of 200 letters for me. To my surprise, I got six cases. The secret? He listed his price for his services in the letter-a very reasonable flat fee. Other "letter" lawyers didn't. They'd try to hook clients, who were already inundated with direct mail solicitations, into calling, and then quoted high fees-if they quoted fees at all. So I started a successful letter-writing campaign-until anthrax hit the East Coast. Now people were afraid to open their mail. What to do? I started sending brightly colored postcards. People now noticed my fee on the card before they were tempted to toss it as so much junk mail. Even if they didn't need a lawyer at the time, they tended to save the card. Being brightly colored, it was easy to locate later. And first class postcard rates are cheaper than bulk mail rates. As a bonus, more civil work came my way, though I now neither need nor want it. But my friends in general practice appreciate the referrals, and in turn refer criminal work to me. Because I live in a rural setting, I do have to travel; I put 60,000 miles on my car last year. But when I get home, I am through for the day-sometimes by noon. And there's no paperwork to worry about. If you don't like to drive, you can work one or two high-volume courts. One caveat: Some states (mine is one) regulate direct mail from lawyers, so be certain to check out your state statutes to ensure you comply. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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DISCLAIMER: This web site provides general information only and is not intended to provide legal advice. Copyright© 2008-2009 Law Office of Judith S. Stainbrook All Rights Reserved | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
