How to Start and Build a Law Practice by Jay Foonberg

You can’t just start representing clients that fall into your lap without reading Jay Foonberg’s How to Start and Build a Law Practice. You really need to buy a copy. Do so ASAP. If you can’t afford to buy the book, read it at the library. It will probably be checked out, so expect a long waiting list. Don’t bother trying to find the book in a law library. Their copy was stolen and they’ve had to order another.

I’m not going to scold you but I’m going to scold you:

• You don’t meet clients at your home. Ever.
• You don’t have animals running around when you meet with clients.
• Don’t expect clients to pay for a consultation. You’re not at that stage yet.

Whether you get to that stage depends on how closely you take Foonberg’s advice.

It’s very easy for me to light up a cigarette while complaining that there’s “No Smoking” in the room. Full disclosure: when I moved my office from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami, I had an office in my home. Worse, I met with clients there. Even worse still, I met with criminal clients there. But I’m not being a hypocrite, I learned from the experience.

“I don’t have the cash for an office,” I hear you weep. I understand. Cash is always a problem.

One of the reasons I moved was to cut down on expenses. Immediately I could stop paying my landlord; the money went into my pocket. When I realized I couldn’t meet clients at my home—and my house had an extension that was set up with its own entrance, but still—it was somebody’s home, it was a residential neighborhood, etc.—I would meet clients at a coffee shop, or at their apartment, wherever.

After I no longer had an office, I once went to a client’s home to collect a fee. When I walked into his place there was an open attache case with a half-opened kilo of cocaine and a pistol on the kitchen table—but did that dissuade me? Of course not.

If you’re going to eke out a practice as a sole practitioner you have to pretend. Fake it until you make it. You need to screen your calls. That was a problem I never solved. An answering service is a step in the right direction. But not a perfect one.

You have to get a lawyer to let you use his conference room from time to time. Preferably, one that you are doing work for, like writing briefs. OK, maybe such a lawyer in New York will have his hand out. Until you’re at the point where you can afford some kind of arrangement, meet in coffee shops, in diners.

The Three Star diner in Brooklyn wouldn’t be bad, especially if they make a big fuss around you. Law libraries have conference rooms; that might be an option. Stack half-open law books on the table; let the potential client see how hard you’re working. You can’t meet in your office because you’re doing legal research but you’ll squeeze him in. While you’re at the library take some time to read the advance sheets; these days a subscription is a $30k downstroke and they say the publishing business is in trouble.

Sam Walton ran his business from a diner; so did Arnold Rothstein, the gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series. These were eccentric characters. Marketing your own eccentricity may not be a bad hook. Don’t tell me you’re not eccentric either—you earned that moniker when you warned your client that there might be cats running around during your initial conference.

I have always envied physicians who are able to squeeze money out of a patient for an initial consultation. That opaque glass window protects the Holy of Holies until it slides open to receive a check or credit card which you better have ready otherwise you won’t be seeing the doctor today. Do you think your physician client meets with patients in his home? Of course not.

Miami’s Ira Kurzban is one of the most celebrated immigration lawyers in the country. You want to see Ira? No problem, make an appointment. You want an appointment? $500. You want to pay the day of your appointment? Guess again. If your funds don’t clear, your appointment is canceled. His kind of practice is anything but normal.

Lawyer’s at Ira’s stage of practice can get away with this, but most can not. Too many lawyers advertise “free consultation” so you are expected to give your time away too. The one exception is divorce practice, where people learned after a Sopranos episode that it costs just to meet with a divorce lawyer after Tony Soprano showed them the way.

For a lawyer, it is extraordinarily difficult to get paid for an initial conversation. A prospective client will squirm like a raver on E before turning over a dime to a lawyer for a consultation. They’ve seen billboards offering free legal services. Why don’t you offer free legal services too? Free consultation, free legal services, isn’t it all free?

My point is, a guy who has to warn a landlord about undisciplined cats roaming around isn’t going to get clients to show up at his home, never mind fork over an initial consultation fee.

Yeah, yeah, “physician heal thyself” and all, but as I puff on my cigarette and demand that you put out yours, consider my advice.

Read Foonberg.