How do I start a law firm? The beauty of running a law firm is…

Starting a firm is challenging. Most firms fail at the beginning for one of these reasons:

1) Charging too little
2) Not spending money to learn business basics or hiring the right experts
3) Not having an ideal client to focus on
4) Dabbling in too many areas of law
5) Not turning down bad cases

Recently I spoke to some law students and new lawyers about starting their own firm, but look, even if you already have a well-established firm, there's a lot to be gained from this run down.  Maybe you skipped a step, maybe this is the kick in the butt to go back to something, I don't know what you'll gain out of it - and if it's nothing - I wasted a few minutes of your time, and for that I am sorry, but appreciate you a ton regardless.

So...assuming you're still with me - forget failure. Let's build a successful firm from Day 1. If I could go back in time, here's what I would do instead:

Step 1: Figure out my Ideal Client

This is absolutely what needs to be happy on day 1 (maybe even day negative 30).

I know I go into this all the time. If you're still not sure - here's the worksheet we put together.

But basically you want to know who this firm should be attracting for legal work, so you need to start there.

Step 2: Develop MY way to solve my ideal clients' problem

Don't reinvent the wheel here. The law has been mostly the same for hundreds of years, we just stopped wearing wigs. But to the extent that you know what you're doing (I hope you do) I would make sure you have your system flushed out.
 
Examples:
 
Are you going to do an initial consult then a strategy session then a signing meeting? Or can you combine those into 2 meetings.
 
Or are you going to make 3 sets of offers presuit and then file immediately, or do you want to wait longer?
 
Are you going to handle contested divorces with kids, or just uncontested ones without?
 
When it doubt refer back to step 1 and think about what that ideal client really NEEDS from you.

Step 3: Branding

Once I have those 2 things in mind, then I would spend some time (and probably hire some help if I had the $$$) to come up with a firm name, a logo, a slogan, etc

This should be a name, colors, look that appeals to my ideal client (see why we did that on step one?)

I would think about using my name for the firm ONLY if my long term plans are me doing the legal work the whole time and I am not thinking about selling the firm for a LONG time.

I would also make sure to check for any trademarks (doubtful unless you go deep into a trade name), but also social media handles, the website URL, etc.  Ideally they should all be the same (as in for us JordanLawFL was good everywhere, JordanLaw was usually taken.  Keep it consistent.

I would also incorporate as an S-Corp (I'm not an accountant nor do I play one on TV, but uh...it's been way helpful to me to do this and also have the asset protection from my personal stuff)

Step 4: START FINDING CLIENTS

I want to emphasize this is step 4. I don't give a crap about an office, business cards, fancy software programs, heck I might not even bother with a website RIGHT now (if you're launching with some cash, this would be a VERY good thing to spend it on)...but for most of us I need $$$ so I need clients TODAY.

Now ideally that means putting together a marketing plan that goes over my ideal client and how ads, social media, seo, direct mail, smoke signals, ppc, carrier pidgeons, etc actually gets me in front of them.

But assuming you can't afford that, what can you do a free/cheap to get clients?

1. Make your own website on Wix/Squarespace/etc

2. Create your social media pages

3. Reach out to a few friends for lunch/coffee networking

4. Answer questions on Avvo, Quora, Reddit, local Facebook groups

5. Etc

But, start doing this NOW.  

I might even do some work for free or low bono.

Step 5: Turn Customers into Testimonials and Referral Sources

Did you hear about the new restaurant that just opened up in your town?  If they have some great word of mouth and are already filling Yelp with awesome referrals, that might be the next date night place.

If no one knows about them and the reviews are spotty at best or non-existent...uhhh...let's skip that place.

Your firm is the SAME as that new restaurant.  So (pending stupid bar rules that might exist in your state) start hammering those reviews and testimonials everywhere:

1. Put them on your website

2. Share them on social media

3. Add them to blogs you write

4. Put them on the mailers you send

5. Etc

Step 6: Build Your Sales Process

Now that you have some leads coming in, what are you doing with them?

How are you following up?  Text, email, calls? When are you following up? When it's easy for you?  Or are you carving out the time for this? What are you saying in the follow up? I hope you're sharing some amazing client reviews!

Ideally this would get built out into a CRM, but if you don't have $10,000 or so to do that right, or even a few thousand just to get enough in there to perfect it later...whatever works for you here is fine with me at the beginning.

But here's the thing, without a consistent sales process your marketing is almost pointless.

If you only follow up when you're slow and it's easy, then you sign up clients and get busy and then you don't follow up, so you don't sign anyone up, etc...there's really NO WAY to know what marketing is actually working and what you're making work with a more serious sales process.

And by doing all of this, you can see which cases are profitable and which aren't.  Then you might start turning down certain cases, or charging more, or tweaking your legal work to get better resolutions.

Step 7: Start Trying New Things

Let's say referrals are working for you - awesome, bring in a social media expert to start adding some value on the right platform(s) for your ideal client (or maybe you just target staying top of mind with referral sources).

Google ads working well for you?  Great!  Start looking at some SEO and better page scores to drive down your click costs.

Direct mail working wonders?  Awesome, mail to new counties, add billboards, follow up with some retargeting ads.

I can't be sure which tactic is truly best for you, but neither can you.  So come up with the idea of what should work, execute on it, track the results, and tweak or cut it if it's underperforming.

Step 8: Basically just repeat step 7 and keep growing

Rinse, Lather, Repeat

At some point you might hire more staff, another lawyers, or bring in a fractional CMO (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) to really blow out your marketing and generate way more leads...but seriously, this foundation will make it SO MUCH EASIER to build the firm you can be proud of.

‍