Some years ago, an ADA who was on his way out of the office asked me how criminal defense lawyers got their clients. I didn’t like this kid, as he was a nasty cretin as an assistant, so I patiently explained that the quickest way to get clients was to stand by the hot dog seller outside the courthouse, looking very professional, and the family of newly arrested defendants in search of a lawyer would come up to him, inquire if he was a lawyer, and retain him on the spot. I got the idea from another former ADA who asked me if it was ethical to pay the hot dog vendor for referrals.
About a year later, I ran into the former assistant in the hallway, and he thanked me for my help. As it turned out, he made a cottage industry out of taking whatever a defendant’s family had in their pockets and doing arraignments. He made up on volume what he lost on quality. The same could be said for his clientèle.
The new school approach uses different tactics, but the same strategy. Brian Tannebaum provides 10 Rules for getting Rich Quick as a lawyer at his My Law License blog. Brian actually offers 11 rules, but I think he’s off on Rule 8, so I’ve chosen to ignore it.
The gravamen of Brian’s rules are simple: Enjoy the benefits of the internet to carefully craft an online persona that conceals who you really are and gives the world a deliberately false impression, playing upon ignorance and ambiguity to skirt ethics and competence while sucking in the desperate. It’s foolproof. It’s available. It is, indeed, a viable way to turn yourself into a cash machine overnight, even though you may not quite deserve it.
But there are two questions you need to ask yourself before indulging in Brian’s 10 steps. Is this who you are? Is this who you want to be?
Once you have established yourself as a money-grubbing, incompetent slut, that’s who you will be for the balance of your career. Your reputation exists amongst judges, court personnel, and most importantly, other lawyers. You will be what you’ve chosen to be, and it’s a reputation that’s almost impossible to change. Granted, you won’t be the only one, and you may well have plenty of company in your effort to pick off the low-hanging fruit for the quick buck, but you will never be recognized as a good lawyer, and certainly never a great lawyer.
There is money to be made as a quick-buck artist. Spin through enough arraignments, enough guilty pleas, and even with fees well below market you can accumulate quite a bit. You will even have clients who think you’ve done a fine job, pleading them out to crimes they didn’t commit or when their rights were violated or when they have a great defense. Clients are funny; their perception of competence is proportional to their happiness with the outcome. If you can convince them that the outcome is good, even if it’s not, they will be happy. They just don’t know any better.
Lord knows there are certainly plenty of people around the internet who are chomping at the bit to help you down the path to making a quick buck. For the most part, these are failed lawyers who, like you, pretend to be something they’re not and are playing you for a fool just like you will play your clients for fools. You will probably get along great with these charlatans. You have so much in common.
Some of Brian’s rules are more important than others. For example, Rules 3 and 4 are critical:
About a year later, I ran into the former assistant in the hallway, and he thanked me for my help. As it turned out, he made a cottage industry out of taking whatever a defendant’s family had in their pockets and doing arraignments. He made up on volume what he lost on quality. The same could be said for his clientèle.
The new school approach uses different tactics, but the same strategy. Brian Tannebaum provides 10 Rules for getting Rich Quick as a lawyer at his My Law License blog. Brian actually offers 11 rules, but I think he’s off on Rule 8, so I’ve chosen to ignore it.
The gravamen of Brian’s rules are simple: Enjoy the benefits of the internet to carefully craft an online persona that conceals who you really are and gives the world a deliberately false impression, playing upon ignorance and ambiguity to skirt ethics and competence while sucking in the desperate. It’s foolproof. It’s available. It is, indeed, a viable way to turn yourself into a cash machine overnight, even though you may not quite deserve it.
But there are two questions you need to ask yourself before indulging in Brian’s 10 steps. Is this who you are? Is this who you want to be?
Once you have established yourself as a money-grubbing, incompetent slut, that’s who you will be for the balance of your career. Your reputation exists amongst judges, court personnel, and most importantly, other lawyers. You will be what you’ve chosen to be, and it’s a reputation that’s almost impossible to change. Granted, you won’t be the only one, and you may well have plenty of company in your effort to pick off the low-hanging fruit for the quick buck, but you will never be recognized as a good lawyer, and certainly never a great lawyer.
There is money to be made as a quick-buck artist. Spin through enough arraignments, enough guilty pleas, and even with fees well below market you can accumulate quite a bit. You will even have clients who think you’ve done a fine job, pleading them out to crimes they didn’t commit or when their rights were violated or when they have a great defense. Clients are funny; their perception of competence is proportional to their happiness with the outcome. If you can convince them that the outcome is good, even if it’s not, they will be happy. They just don’t know any better.
Lord knows there are certainly plenty of people around the internet who are chomping at the bit to help you down the path to making a quick buck. For the most part, these are failed lawyers who, like you, pretend to be something they’re not and are playing you for a fool just like you will play your clients for fools. You will probably get along great with these charlatans. You have so much in common.
Some of Brian’s rules are more important than others. For example, Rules 3 and 4 are critical:
[3] If you are a young lawyer (less than 10 years out) do not say, on your website or brochure, when you graduated from either college or law school. Leave no evidence of how long you’ve been practicing.
[4] Find a creative writer that can make you appear more experienced than you are without crossing ethical lines. Use words and phrases like “aggressive,” “experienced,” “fight for you,” and “in your corner.”
Nobody is going to retain you if they know that you’ve got no experience and plan to cop a plea at the first opportunity. So never put your resume online, or reveal that you’ve got all of 12 minutes experience as a lawyer. And since no one can challenge the ethics of excessive adjectives, you can claim pretty much anything you want about yourself as long as its subjective. Who’s to know?
Another critical Rule is number 7:
An even better alternative is to not use lawyers at all, but paralegals to appear in court. Sure, it’s not quite ethical, but few judges care as long as they move dockets along. It takes about 10 minutes to teach them the plea mantra, and you’ve got as skilled a person standing next to the defendant as you need. And you can pay them even less than a lawyer, making them an even bigger profit center.
Many lawyers starting out complain about their outstanding loans from law school, the need to make the payments on the obligatory BMW, the desire to going out drinking nightly with your employed buddies. I understand. You need money. Going to law school didn’t pan out quite the way mom thought it would, or perhaps you never really wanted to be a lawyer at all and are now really pissed at the notion that you’ve suffered for three years and still become wealthy overnight. Here’s your chance.
There are only the two caveats to consider before following Brian’s 10 Rules. Will you be able to sleep at night? When you look into the mirror ten years from now, having accumulated great wealth and living in the lap of luxury, will you be proud of who you see? Only you can answer these questions. It doesn’t matter what Brian, or I, thinks.
Another critical Rule is number 7:
[7] You will get busy very quickly. Do not worry. Find young, unemployed and less experienced lawyers to do the work. Your clients are paying little money so it really doesn’t matter who does the work.This is where one distinguishes between the practice of law and the business of law. When you’re going low fee/high volume, as you must to make a quick buck, there’s no time to practice law, and you certainly can’t be in ten places at the same time. This is where you use others who are just as inexperienced but less entrepreneurial to fill the gaps. Lawyers are a dime a dozen, and you gather up a handful who have nothing better to do, send them out with a list and have them cop pleas for you. These lawyers are called “profit centers,” and will become a valuable asset. If they start to balk, or ask for more money, toss them aside and get some new ones. There will always be plenty to chose from.
An even better alternative is to not use lawyers at all, but paralegals to appear in court. Sure, it’s not quite ethical, but few judges care as long as they move dockets along. It takes about 10 minutes to teach them the plea mantra, and you’ve got as skilled a person standing next to the defendant as you need. And you can pay them even less than a lawyer, making them an even bigger profit center.
Many lawyers starting out complain about their outstanding loans from law school, the need to make the payments on the obligatory BMW, the desire to going out drinking nightly with your employed buddies. I understand. You need money. Going to law school didn’t pan out quite the way mom thought it would, or perhaps you never really wanted to be a lawyer at all and are now really pissed at the notion that you’ve suffered for three years and still become wealthy overnight. Here’s your chance.
There are only the two caveats to consider before following Brian’s 10 Rules. Will you be able to sleep at night? When you look into the mirror ten years from now, having accumulated great wealth and living in the lap of luxury, will you be proud of who you see? Only you can answer these questions. It doesn’t matter what Brian, or I, thinks.
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“As it turned out, he made a cottage industry out of taking whatever a defendant’s family had in their pockets and doing arraignments.”
I always got the sense (based on my limited experience) that this statement described about 80-90% of the criminal defense bar. I also got the sense that selling hotdogs in front of the courthouse would be more fun, and easier on the conscience, and possibly more lucrative.
Dan,
I think that’s the standard in anything. We go through school talking about the “top 10%” and look at the “top 10” of everything. 80-90% of all industries are made up of run of the mill bean counters
I try to distinguish those who do this by default from those who do this by design.
As for selling hotdogs in front of the courthouse, that occurred to me as well, but I decided not to mention it so that I wouldn’t have any additional competition if I wanted the gig. Thanks for screwing up that plan, Dan.
I always figured that the bribe you had to pay to a local hack politician/bureaucrat or payoff to the local strong-man type to get that prime spot right in front of the courthouse represented too high a barrier to entry.
Better that you sell hot dogs than tamales.
And Scott, with your winning ways, if you ever want a second career, I’d dress you up as a Wal-mart greeter and rent you out to grassroots groups who would pay you to stand in front of big box stores and scare away the customers. Think of it as both a civic service and a revenue opportunity. (And I’d only take a small commission.)
I do mean that offer as a compliment.
I could see it now, one greeter brings down the entire Walton empire. I like it!
I am less than ten years out and my website does not say when I graduated from college or law school. I’m also pretty sure I’ve used the terms “aggressive” and “fight for you” in advertising materials at some point. Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a client because of those things. I might just suck at self-aggrandizing though.
Anyway, I think most clients see through that stuff. I also think that you and Brian Tannebaum are overestimating the power of that type of marketing. But then again, I might just suck at marketing.
Those lawyers who seem to make a lot of money doing it probably just pretend they make a lot of money doing it. I’d bet their financial success is all show, just like what they say about themselves.
I see that sarcasm doesn’t travel very well to Chandler County, Arizona.
Leave him alone Scott, he’s 2 hours behind us here on the east coast.
Chandler County residents aren’t known for their senses of humor. I noticed sarcasm about the legitimacy of that kind of marketing, but I didn’t note any with regard to its effectiveness. I think I’ll just wait two hours and see if I catch it then.
I think it’s wonderful that you are a very serious and dedicated young lawyer.