At My Shingle, Carolyn Elefant tried something unusual. Her focus is to support lawyers who want to hang out their own shingle, to go solo. Unlike others who bolster solo practice as way to rationalize their own choice, however, Carolyn has been very careful to make clear that it’s not for everyone, it’s no panacea and, sometimes, it’s going to be a massive failure.
She received an email asking for help from a solo whose practice was dying. This is often the view from the other side of that great divide, the one where looking forward into the future is filled with excitement and expectation, while looking back is filled with a silent telephone, spider solitaire and an empty file cabinet.
Carolyn doesn’t say, but my guess is that no easy answer presented itself to resolve her emailer’s prayer for help. Instead, she tried to “crowdsource” a solution, which is the internet version of “ask the audience,” a lifeline from the TV gameshow “Do You Want To Be A Millionaire?” For some types of questions involving popular culture, “ask the audience” was very likely to produce a correct answer. For other types, like the atomic weight of cobalt (58.933195), not so much.
My guess was that Carolyn, and hence her emailer, was unlikely to get any novel or focused response, It would prove along the lines of surgeons saying the solution is to cut (insert carpenter with hammer analogy instead it that’s your preference). Still, it offered a very interesting experiment, not so much as a means of getting a viable answer as a means of seeing who wanted to use this opportunity to sell their wares.
Naturally, a marketer showed up like a guppy drawn to chum, providing a fairly detailed scheme of how the lawyer could demean himself by walking the boulevard in hot pants begging for quickies. More curiously, another voice chimed in by referring readers to his own blog for advice. This voice belonged to Joe Flanders.
As suggested, I posted on this topic over at my blog Solo In Minneapolis. I hope some of my suggestions helped. If there are more specifics, I would be happy to offer other things that have worked for me.This could have either offered a thoughtful opportunity for the problem at hand, or been a self-aggrandizing opportunity. As another commenter, who may well have been Carolyn’s original emailer noted,
I would really like to see responses from solos who are making at least 6 figures (in profit) from their law practice (not another business) and have been making this amount consistently for quite some time. Not that I discount the advice of someone making less, but so many people offer advice that they haven’t implemented themselves or haven’t implemented correctly.So was Joseph Flander the six figure lawyer with a solution? It mattered, and I wanted to know.
One point of reference, Joe. You’re a new solo giving advice to another new solo. Is that because you’ve discovered the secret to making millions or just want to flawg your name around the blawgosphere? If the former, how wonderful that you, new millionaire that you are, are willing to share with others.
If not, then who are you to give anyone else advice?
Joe was taken aback.
Wow. Sorry if I offended blogosphere by trying to be helpful. I guess new solos should just shut up and not try to be helpful. We clearly have nothing of value to add. You sound like my former law firm partner.From Joe’s blog, I learned that he’s up to his eyeballs in social media marketing, though he also writes about how it doesn’t work.
Another cheat – I use social media all the time to try and market Flanders Law Firm and my various legal blogs. Yes, that’s right, I think social media is a total time-waster, doesn’t bring in clients, and generally causes the world to be a dumber place. Yet, I still do it.
So, you’ve come to this website and are rewarded with a rehashed post from a social media hypocrite on why social media marketing for lawyers is lame and doesn’t really work. Enjoy!
When I first read Joe’s comment at My Shingle, it struck me that this was a teaching moment, an opportunity to explain why he lacked the capacity to be helpful. Much like those frequenting the Solosez listserv, they share a comment problem but don’t have a solution in the bunch. It’s perfectly fine for young lawyers to commiserate with each other, and everyone can appreciate how misery loves company, but it is not fine to promote oneself as having solutions when you’re all in the same boat. That’s not fine at all.
What Joe did, a less troubling version of Rachel Rodgers‘ (the self-proclaimed lawyer life coach who just celebrated the anniversary of her first year as a lawyer) scheme, is a pervasive problem on the internet and in the blawgosphere. Young lawyers, digital natives, telling other young lawyers the secrets of success that they have yet to achieve. They are sufficiently expert to have advice to impart, though they have yet to attain the accomplishments they offer others.
This is a danger, as those on the bottom half of the youthful arrogance scale, who are seeking help for their struggling practice, are led to believe that there is a secret answer that will salvage their future. Except the answer comes from someone sitting behind them in the same lifeboat, though you wouldn’t know it unless you turned around and looked closely.
What makes people who have not as yet achieved their goals think that they are positioned to teach other young lawyers how to do so? For most, it’s a validation of their methods, a way to justify their choices by urging them on others. This is a very understandable and common human desire, but remarkably wrong. It’s not helpful to urge others to do something that hasn’t worked for you. It self-indulgent.
I guess new solos should just shut up and not try to be helpful.
That’s right. New lawyers don’t want to hear this, and don’t like it one little bit, but this is exactly the right advice. If you have nothing helpful to say, say nothing. If you have yet to achieve a thriving practice, then you have no advice for anyone else who is having difficulty achieving the same thriving practice.
I realize that the idea of shutting up offends you, and being told to shut up stings. I realize that it flies in the face of what your parents and professors told you, that you should express yourself constantly. But this is the real world, and just because you have a keyboard and time on your hands does not mean you have advice to offer.
Ironically, it seems Joe has come to this realization on his own, between the time of his comment at My Shingle and today.
I’m feeling a little down about all of my social media/blogging/website-optimization efforts to market and start a law firm. I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on legal internet marketing for near four months now and it has become all consuming. To be honest, it is exhausting. I have begun to ask myself: to what end?
Additionally, I hope you know that getting clients is not terribly difficult. However, being a good attorney is. If you don’t know what you are doing, don’t start a law firm.There, I said it. Don’t start a law firm unless you have some legal experience and can represent your clients with a high standard of excellence and zeal. If you came here for advice and read this silly little piece of internet cheapery, I hope that message hits home.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I wish all of you the best of luck.
Now that’s some good advice, Joe. Thanks for sharing it.
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Scott,
You are correct in that your comment on My Shingle got to me. Your comment is the reason I wrote my latest post on my blog. I suppose I owe you a thank you for that. I think you make an excellent point about young attorneys giving advice to other young attorneys. There is an inherent danger in doing it and I cannot help but recognize that fact.
What I do not appreciate is you making anonymous comments on legal blogs that are snarky and full of spite. I also do not appreciate that you appear to make blog posts on a consistent basis in order to benefit your law practice; however, it would appear to be your opinion that I should not blog to market my law practice because I am – as you state without bothering to get to know me – young.
Ms. Elefant offered the opportunity to write a blog post on helping a struggling attorney and I took it. It may have been promotional and self-aggrandizing. What blogs aren’t?
However, I have had success with every piece of advice I gave in my blog post. I have also never claimed to make “6-figures”. Furthermore, I have made money doing the things I advised in my post. It wasn’t bad advice – did you even read the post? If you didn’t read my post, I would invite you to explain to me what, in your expert opinion, was “wrong” with the advice I gave.
Finally, a wise person once told me that you are not doing something right unless you are pissing somebody off. Well, I hope I achieved that with you. I don’t plan to stop asserting my First Amendment rights to blog and discuss practicing law. I have often been faced with older, more experienced attorneys who were miffed when some young buck managed success in this difficult profession. Just as I did not do then, I will not apologize for working hard, becoming a licensed attorney, and practicing law in the best way I know how.
Ok. You pissed me off. But, you make a good point and I’m over it. After reading some of your posts, I realized that you are not an idiot. Thanks for mentioning me.
However, I think a deserved point of critique is worth mentioning: please refrain from not quoting me in entirety if you are going to try to castrate me.
-Joe
Anonymous comments? I never make anonymous comments, though I frequently make snarky ones. Did you think you can demand that others treat you like a sweet little boy?
Spiteful? Only in the mind of a narcissistic child. It’s neither to make you feel happy or sad, but to make a point using your mistake. That you want to promote yourself on the internet but are too delicate to take the heat isn’t my fault, but does suggest that you have a lot of growing up to do before you’re ready to be the lawyer you pretend to be.
And don’t try to comprehend the purpose of my blawg through your lens. I don’t write to benefit my law practice, but to write. Be careful about projecting your purposes onto others. It also leads to dangerous mistakes.
You didn’t piss me off, either at Carolyn’s blog or here, in the slightest. You were only useful to make a point. Nothing more.
Ah, another teaching moment. No one will ever quote you in the entirety. As long as you are quoted accurately, that’s all you can expect or demand. If you don’t like being quoted, then you shouldn’t be writing publicly.
And thank you for letting me know that I’m not an idiot. I feel much better about myself now.
Joe, I have a question. You wrote:
“I don’t plan to stop asserting my First Amendment rights to blog and discuss practicing law.”
Are you stating that the First Amendment applies to SHG?
Rumpole, no I do not. If Mr. Greenfield wants to post my comments he has full editorial control.
I suspect that Rumpole’s purpose was to question why you included the “first amendment rights” language, which is irrelevant and reflects poorly on your legal acumen since it plays no role in this discussion. Your response neglects to explain why, if it’s not meant to suggest that I have the capacity to impair your first amendment rights, you would include such irrelevant language.
On the other hand, your inclusion of my having “full editorial control” in this comment is similarly irrelevant. Your comments here are precisely as you posted them. To the extent you compound your foolishness, don’t lay it on me. These are your words. I’ve given you the opportunity to speak your mind. That you’ve used the opportunity poorly isn’t my fault.
You have a right to publish your thoughts on the internet. You have no right to expect others not to disagree with them.
Hi Scott,
I also commented on Carolyn’s post and am a new, young solo (which I noted). I don’t think any of us is claiming to be an “expert” or to have reached tremendous success, but that doesn’t mean we can’t provide insight on what has worked. When I was reading the anonymous emailer’s message to Carolyn, all I could think was that it sounds like he/she is sitting in the office, waiting on people to call. Most of my suggestions centered on GET OUT OF THE OFFICE, as I’ve found that to be the “strategy” that has the greatest return (even in my short time in practice).
I’m not claiming that it works all the time, or that it’s the best method…just that it seems to be something the letter-writer is neglecting to try. And I’m not sure that conclusion has anything to do with being young or new or inexperienced; it seems to be a product of critical thinking at it’s most fundamental level.