I did really well in law school, and that was a big mistake. Allow me to explain.
It all started when I was putting myself through college working as a radio announcer in Tucson, Arizona. One day the station manager announced that our top-40 AM radio station (“Lucky-13 K-HYT, where AM means Aaron Morris!” ) was switching to a crazy new format called “talk radio” and that they were bringing in all new announcers. I knew it would never catch on, but nonetheless it meant I had to find new work. I dropped the needle on “Stairway to Heaven”, affording me 8 minutes and 2 seconds to peruse the help wanted ads in the newspaper. As it turned out, the Tucson Police Department was looking for police officers, and that is how my career in law enforcement began (with the City of Tucson paying my college tuition — sweet!).
I enjoyed police work, but hated that you are usually mopping up after the crime has occurred, leaving it to the detectives and District Attorneys to try and make things right for the victims. Also, while doing the cop thing, I did a college internship, working as a hearing officer in the juvenile traffic court, and volunteered as a Small Claims Judge in the Pima County Justice Court. The experience of presiding over trials, as well as appearing in court as a Police Officer, exposed me to the work that attorneys perform. I decided that was a great profession, working to help people with their legal problems. I wanted the satisfaction of knowing that I was helping people find justice, and although I knew nothing about the practice of law, even I could figure out that satisfaction would not come from representing large companies or insurance companies. My plan was always to start my own firm so I could take the cases I wanted. ‘So I quit the police department’ (Beatles, She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, off the Abbey Road album) and went to law school.
Which brings me back to the big mistake.
I ended up at the top of my class, and with it came lunches with Supreme Court Justices, Editor in Chief of the Law Review, full ride scholarship, swimming pools, movie stars . . . . So the big firms came calling, and I fell for it. I had my choice of several firms, but I ended up at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The summer associate program had made it look so wonderful, but when I started working there for real, it took me about three months to realize I had made a horrible mistake. That’s not a dig on the firm; as big firms go Gibson is as good as they get and some associates were probably having a wonderful time. I didn’t see any, but I’m sure they were there. I just knew it was not what I was looking for. I was a litigator, but at a big firm you are all just hired guns, with no consideration as to whether you are on the right side of a case. I somehow fell into the niche of ERISA preemption. Plaintiff attorneys would sue to recover benefits being denied to their clients, and I brought summary judgment motion after summary judgment motion to dispose of the actions on the basis of ERISA preemption. We actually were on the “right” side of those cases, because the plaintiffs were bringing the actions in the wrong court, but that didn’t change the fact that I was just another cog in the insurance company machine that worked to deprive people of their benefits.
By the time Christmas rolled around, I couldn’t rationalize any more — I realized that I hated the practice of law. Gibson didn’t have a Christmas party; it had a Christmas pageant where the associates were expected to perform. At the conclusion of the pageant, the partners got up and sang to the associates a song they had written, called “There is Nothing Like a Drone“. I realized, as I listened to the song, I did not have the proper drone mentality. In the first place, I wasn’t content to devote my life to my job, and in the second place, I could do the math. I was working 70 to 80-hour weeks, and although my salary seemed impressive, I wasn’t making much more than I had as a cop when I calculated my pay on an hourly basis. Just about any hourly job will pay an impressive amount if you put in 70 hours per week. Indeed, had it been possible to work that much overtime as a police officer, I would have earned far more.
But the real eye opener came from calculating my income from another angle. At the hourly rate the firm was charging clients for my services, the firm was making over $500,000 in gross profit after deducting my salary! No wonder the partners sang There is Nothing Like a Drone. Looking at the numbers yet another way, I calculated that if I went off on my own and charged the same hourly rate (understanding that was unlikely), I could make what I was earning working less than ten hours per week!
I returned to plan “A” and began putting everything in place to start my own firm. I was the first attorney ever, as far as I know, to handle a trial solo my first year at Gibson. Don’t be too impressed, it was a slip and fall we handled as a service for an existing corporate client. (Which I won, thank you very much.) I found more such work hiding around the firm, and gained quite a bit of litigation experience. When I was ready, I left the big firm practice. Initially I found a great transitional firm that basically provided an office in exchange for a split of whatever I brought in, while at the same time providing work of their own on an hourly basis. I made more under that arrangement than I had ever made working at a big firm, and it was a good buffer while I continued to get everything in place and developed my own client base. But after writing that firm a high five figure check for their percentage of one of my cases, I decided I no longer needed the safety net, and officially started my own firm.
I’ve never looked back. If you do it right, starting your own firm is so much better professionally and financially than working for someone else. I mostly handle very interesting and very cutting-edge First Amendment/free speech/defamation cases. I’m always on the right side because I turn down the case if I’m not, and therefore I can feel good about and enjoy what I am doing.
I love being a lawyer. How many lawyers do you know that can say that?
You’ve probably heard a dozen reasons why you should not go off on your own, and added a few yourself. I can tell you the reasons are either urban myths or factors that can be overcome. This site is here to help you do it. If you are new to the site and want to get the lay of the land, click the ridiculously large “Start Here” button to the left. That will introduce you to the foundation of my law firm marketing method, what I call Epic Content-Based, Niche Marketing. If you already have the foundation in place and are looking for some additional ways to market your law firm, then proceed to the ARTICLES PAGE.
Love your book “How to Build a Big, Fat Pipeline of New Clients . . .”
How do I get it in print. Too difficult to find spots I want to work with on Kindle?
Also, want my in house PT web guy to follow it to make me a new site.
Do you offer links to yours?
Thank you for the kind words.
My book is only available in electronic form. One of the great things about publishing books for the Amazon Kindle is that if I update the book, people who have previously purchased it get the updated version on their Kindles. I’ve received a number of requests for a printed version, but I don’t like the idea that books with stale information will end up being sold in Amazon’s used book store.
As to links to my websites, here are a couple of examples. The first is the breach of contract site I reference in the book: http://www.breachofcontractsite.com/ This is a basic website created with GoDaddy’s website builder, that shows up number one on Google searches for breach of contract attorneys in my area. I’ll also show you that same website template, modified to reflect my anti-SLAPP practice, which is also number one on Google results: http://www.antislapp.com/. I offer this second site as an example because I added a blog feed into the bottom of the site. This is an easy way to add more substance and content to the site. I did not know if Google would index this additional content (or give it any weight since it amounts to duplicate content from my blog), but I am happy to report that when doing test searches, the results pull up this site based on keywords that happened to be in the articles that got pulled into the site from my blog.
Please note I created these sites with GoDaddy’s prior version of website builder. The current version offers much more flexibility and creates nicer looking sites. I’m converting some of mine when I get the chance, but when I have sites like these that are coming up number one on Google and bringing in work, I’m concerned about making any major revisions.