Starting a Law Firm - When to Start?

When you look at the bottom of each post in Starting a Law Firm, you will notice that it is written by HTSALF. Clearly this is a pen name, but what does it mean? Pretty simple really - How to Start a Law Firm. Look, as a Maryland DUI attorney, or Virginia criminal attorney, I don't need to be original. We don't reinvent the wheel. But the real question is: "why use a pen name in the first place?" It's because I want this blog to stay anonymous, at least for now.

In any event, the title of this post asks the question of when to start your small law firm, and the answer can be divided into two separate pieces. The first is when to start planning for starting your law firm and the second is when to actually open your law firm.

Once you have made the decision to start a law firm, you should start planning immediately. Opening a business takes a lot of researching, plaanning, and implementing. You want to be as ready as possible whenever you open your days. How much time do you need to plan? It really depends on the person. But I would leave several months at a bare minimum.

No matter when you open your law firm, you will feel as though you didn't do enough preparation. One thing that I did, which may be helpful, is provide a "soft" opening in order to get your feet wet. The reason I did it was because I had to open on very short notice, and it helped with some of my planning. But I think a soft opening can also be a good idea if you have plenty of time to plan and simply want to make the transition a little easier. Also, you won't be pressured with a specific opening date, which helps because you already will have enough pressure to succeed.

Starting a Law Firm - Where to Start?

So I’ve decided to start a law firm. Congratulations! Now what? That is where I was not too long ago. Actually, just after I decided to start a law firm, I ended up putting my plans on hold for about a month. But my desire to take control of my life outweighed any other motivators, and I got back on the wagon. Now I am a little over a month into starting a law firm, and I still feel like I have so much to do.

But where did I start? Honestly, the first thing I did was buy a new phone – an HTC Droid Incredible. I knew that if I made some investment, albeit a relatively small one after the rebates, there was no turning back. For the first time in a long time, I was excited about my work, even if it was false optimism.

So where should I have started? Right here. Well not right here, but definitely on the internet researching how to start a law firm. So that is what I did, immediately after making my first purchase. There is a lot of information out there for attorneys out there to find. I knew that starting a law firm was going to take a lot of planning. So I started with Foonberg’s How to Start & Build a Law Practice, continued researching online through the ABA and my local bar associations, read as many blogs as possible. All the while, I made a running to do list based on all the information I took in. Included on my to do list was creating a business plan and creating a marketing plan. Those two items, as well as my current to do list, are complete topics for future posts. For now, just know that the to do list is long, but starts with the idea and research.

What about my new phone? My thinking in purchasing probably the best phone in Verizon’s arsenal was that I wanted to project success from the outset. Well, it hasn’t even arrived yet. My understanding is that Verizon, through HTC, through Samsung, is having trouble keeping up with demand because the screen used on the Incredible is in short supply. I guess it serves me right for doing things backwards.