At his family law marketing blog, Divorce Discourse,  Lee Rosen one-ups me on the digital snark-o-meter in advice for young lawyers starting their law practice.

She calls me and wants to talk about getting set up.

“Do you have any clients?” I ask.

“Not yet,” she says, “But I’ve got a plan, so I want to talk to you about making sure I’ve got everything covered when I get started,” she continues.

I explain that she needs one thing and only one thing right now. She asks what I mean.

“You need a phone,” I tell her.

She’s not satisfied. She wants to talk about office space, malpractice insurance, a laptop, and a website.

“Do you have a phone now?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re good to go,” I tell her (I should just hang up at this point, but I’m a glutton for punishment).

Way back when, before there were non-practicing lawyers desperate to cash-in on the young lawyers who want to start their own practice by offering their consulting and marketing services with a lengthy list of all the critical things a lawyer absolutely needed, lawyers started practices.  They just did.

Lee is trying to make a point, even if some might prefer to quibble about details. He’s not saying that it’s a bad thing to have an office, a laptop, a website and especially malpractice insurance. He’s saying that these things are not prerequisites.

What Lee is saying is that what makes a practice is clients. Get clients and everything else follows. Why? Because it’s the clients who pay you legal fees, and it’s legal fees that pay for the office, a laptop, a website and especially malpractice insurance. 

But you do need a phone.  Without a phone, the client cannot contact you. If the client cannot contact you, you cannot make an appointment to meet whereat you can impress the client with your legal acumen, giving rise to the client’s retaining you with the payment of legal fees.  And as already known, these fees can be used for the purchase, lease or other acquisition of all the cool accoutrements of a solo practice.

This isn’t rocket science, though it’s been made to seem that way.  There are pre-printed lists of what a young lawyer needs to acquire.  There are hot debates over the amount of money a lawyer needs to have in the bank before starting up.  There is the critical issue of the logo.

If the issue were posed as a philosophical debate, it might be best put this way: does a lawyer with an office, a website and a logo, but no clients, have a law practice?  Does a lawyer with a client but not office, website or logo have a law practice?  The answer is self-evident.

Lee’s bigger point, however, isn’t philosophical at all.  It’s in counterpoise to the many voices informing lawyers that they cannot start a practice without having checked off the majority of the items on their laundry list.  Each item on the list costs money.  And as one wanders the aisles of Best Buy looking at the latest technological wonder without which an office cannot exist, the inchoate solo practitioner becomes increasingly poorer for the effort.

But, what about…

Office space? She can rent or borrow a conference room for her meetings.

Malpractice insurance? Until you have a client, you don’t need it. Once you’ve got a client, then take some of that money and buy it—it’s easy—they have really nice salespeople (I bet you can get them to buy you lunch). Plus, if you don’t have any assets, buying insurance might not even make sense yet.

Laptop? Get a client first. You can pick up a laptop at Best Buy in 20 minutes. Plus, you already have a laptop, right?

Website? Go get a client and stop worrying about the website. If you insist on building one, then do it with SquareSpace  while you’re watching TV one night.

A paralegal? You’re kidding, right?

A copier? You’ll find these located at FedEx stores and elsewhere. They’re just sitting there waiting for you.

Practice management system? What practice? Get a few dozen clients, and then you’ll have something to manage.

I could go on and on explaining why you don’t need to worry about all this stuff. Bottom line: you don’t need to worry about all this stuff.

While a very real issue was raised about the need for malpractice insurance by  Bruce Godfrey in the comments, as it’s not only for the benefit of the lawyer but for the security of the client, the point remains sound.  It’s a point that others, myself included, have tried to make before. You may want all the stuff on the laundry list.

You may feel more “real” if you have most of it.  But you don’t need it.  And when you aren’t generating revenue, and don’t have money to burn, focus on need rather than want, or desire, or cool, or any of the other factors that have somehow replaced reason in the minds of young lawyers.

Thirty years later, things will change to some extent, but in another way, they never change.  If anyone, one’s grasp of the critical distinction between want and need becomes more acute.  The financial demands increase beyond your wildest imagination, and every dollar thrown in the toilet on unnecessary stuff is a dollar that isn’t available for things that matter.  Sure, you reach a point of comfort where you have the luxury of buying whatever you want, but the culture of frugality lasts a lifetime, and will always serve you well.

There is, however, one crucial difference between Lee Rosen’s view and mine. HIs post shows an image of an iPhone.  While you may need a phone, any type will do.