A New Blogger The Marketers And Starbucks Lawyers Missed

According to those worshipped on the internet these days, lawyers only blog for profit, and working in an office is a sure fire road to nowhere. We are in a marketing sewer and all lawyers are to follow the lawyer in front of them down to the pile of shit called the internet, typiing away for the sole purpose of business, and working from their dining room table when Starbucks kicks them out.

Lawyer Joe Scura must have been out the day the unemployed former nothing lawyers were busy scamming other lawyers young and old in to thinking that working alone from home and blogging for clients was the only way to riches and fame.

His website and blog violate about every marketing rule that exists.

Fasten your seatbelt marketing scum - here's Joe out of the box on his website:

Joe Scura opened his first law office in 2009

2009! You idiot! Rule number 1 - never, NEVER say how long you've been out unless it's more than 5 years.

What the marketers would have told Joe was to start with:

Joe Scura is an experienced criminal defense lawyer that will fight for your rights for a reasonable fee.

The Virtual Office crew (who of late have insisted this is the future of law) drops out of Joe's world at the second sentence, where he says:

This office is devoted to providing exceptional representation to real people faced with real legal problems

Then there's his first blog post:

Two Years In Solo Practice

There you go again Joe, being all honest and transparent and just violating every rule of sleezy marketers.

A better title would have been: My Advice To Young Lawyers After Years In Private Practice (2 is plural after all.)

Joe continunes with the first reason he writes this post:

I would like potential clients to know who I am and where I’m coming from.

Oh man Joe, you want them to know the truth about you? Really?

Here's more bad news: Joe went to law school not to make money, but: with the goal of becoming a criminal defense attorney

And while I want you to go to Joe's blog and give him the many hits he obviously doesn't care about, here's a clip of what to expect (so the "how to make money fast like today as a lawyer" crowd doesn't waste their time.)

If I could stress one point here, it would be “just work”. You could spend hours in your office tweaking your website, tweeting, answering questions on AVVO, (all of which I’ve done btw) but if you want to be a young solo the most productive thing you can do to build your practice is develop skills as an attorney and do good work

Welcome aboard Joe, and congratulations on your first "Like," from me.

h/t: Mark Bennett

Non-anonymous comments welcome. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

A Reader Sees Hypocrisy On Going Solo

Hey:

You've done several recent posts that seem to encourage solo practice, contrary to your advice to me when we first met. Personally, as one of those people "you reading this from a couch, or a Starbucks, lamenting why no one thinks you're entitled to a career," I've considered it. But let's be real: there are a lot of barriers to entry. Even in the otherwise heartwarming story you posted the other day about the guy doing foreclosure defense, the punch line is the legislature just made it much more difficult for him to get paid.

How about writing a post that explains some of the basics of learning your trade--CLEs? treatises? Setting up your business structure, bank accounts, malpractice insurance, good practices etc?

Busted.

So let me see if I can get myself out of this mess.

First, as to the second part of the reader's email: Here's a bunch of posts I've written on solo practice.

To sum it up:

First figure out what type of law you want to practice.

I know when I say that, most of today's law school graduates respond: "But I never went to law school to become a certain type of lawyer, I just went for the paycheck at the end. Whatever type of law that is - that's what I want to practice."

As to the first part, no, I don't advocate solo practice out of law school. I also don't advocate that if you cut yourself and are bleeding, that you urinate on the cut to sterilize it. However, if you have no other options, it's probably better that you do that, then allowing yourself to become infected. Exploring the option of solo practice, rather than playing video games while waiting for Oprah to start or hoping someone at Starbuck's notices you typing feverishly on your laptop and offers you a job, is the better move.

If you explore the solo path, and it doesn't work for you because you don't feel competent to go solo, or it doesn't interest you because you believe the hype of BigLaw that solos are somehow less of a lawyer than those who pray to the mahogany and billable hour God, then here's my advice: If you went to law school to get a job and you cannot get that job, get another job. Yes, do something else. While I know that most lawyers are perceived to have no other interest than law, I bet there is something else you can do, even if it's not exactly what you wanted to do. I know that is a foreign concept to those who feel entitled to a specific job, but it's better to pay your bills, then have someone else pay them while you wait for the job that you thought was guaranteed at the end of your 3 year yellow brick road.

Thanks for writing (and I won't tell anyone that you are doing other things to pay the bills right now, it offends those who won't).

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.

5 Thoughts On Going Solo

[1] Decide what type of lawyer you want to be.

If you are going to do door law ("whatever walks in the door"), you will be a failure. You will be running around town doing mildly competent work for little money. Be a master of a practice area, or two at the most.

[2] Keep your mouth shut.

If you now work for a firm, don't talk to anyone there. Not even that guy. Find your advice outside the firm. Far outside the firm.

[3] Don't buy shit.

"Shit" meaning garbage. There's plenty of resources out there that appear to be important. I recommend a shared office space arrangement for low or work-for rent rates, a computer, and business cards to start. Most other stuff turns out to be "shit."

[4] Read everything you can.

There are so many resources on-line. Here's the result of a quick Google search for "lawyer going solo."

[5] Stay out of the office.

If you want to do the mass mailing thing, great. Then you can stay in your office and take calls. If you are building a referral based business, every lunch you eat at your desk costs you money. If you don't understand that, I can't help you.

Good Luck.

Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. Read his free ebook The Truth About Hiring A Criminal Defense Lawyer. Please visit www.tannebaumweiss.com