Whether you’re starting a law practice or running a marathon, it is essential to prepare (train; or, “run a train on”, as it were) and to get off the blocks quickly. (How should I know whether there are blocks at marathon starts . . . I’ve never actually run a marathon. That’s insane.)
Here at the LOMAP home office, and about this great commonwealth, in the making of our appointed rounds, we see two sorts of attorney-clients: (1) those who have already established their practices, and who are seeking the light of whether their practices comport with best practices, and to what extent; and, (2) those attorneys who are starting their own practices for the first time, from whencever they have come.
Those establishing their practices range in pedigree, experience, ideals and imagination. However, there are general considerations of which they all must be made aware in order to start up successfully. To that end, we have generally made available to attorneys contacting us wishing to start their own practices what we have labeled our “Start-Up Kit”, which consists of a document addressing the main considerations for establishing a practice (as alluded to above–see, I meet my promises), our general start-up Powerpoint (long version) and a self-audit checklist (perhaps better suited for distribution to those attorneys who are already practicing, but which is also likely useful for new attorneys, as they guesstimate from the questions asked what may or may not be the right and wrong ways to do things), all of which combine to create a useful electronic packet of sorts for the start-up solo attorney, or start-up firm. In the spirit, then, of publishing most all of our useful resources to our blog, I have created a drop site, at which I have sheltered the referenced “Start-Up Kit” documents, as well as another version of our start-up Powerpoint. You can now, then, access these multiple documents here, without benefit of our emailing them to you.
(The dirty little secret here, of course, is that the collection of information described above can oft-times be as useful to attorneys seeking to refresh their practice systems as it can be for starting attorneys. Ssshhh.)
In combination with the depositing of these resources to the wide web, LOMAP has established a group meeting for start-up attorneys and start-up firms, which meeting takes place at the end of each month, here at our offices in downtown Boston. For the meetings, Rodney and I make a fulsome presentation based on our start-up Powerpoints, and address questions. The genesis of these meetings was the fact that we tended to get the same general questions over and over again from firm- and solo-starters. Practically speaking, it was better to address the same sets of questions within a group setting. The group setting also provides the advantage of creating for attendees something of a built-from-the-ground-up support system. For attorneys starting their own practices, it can be tremendously helpful just to know that they are not alone, and that others are in the same boat, with the same sorts of questions to bale out from.
Of course, being a company that loves to establish small administrative hoops for the jumping (c’mon, you can fill out a couple simple forms in order to talk to us, right?–we don’t charge anything), you’ll need to become a LOMAP client before you can attend a group meeting. If you want our forms, and to see about upcoming meeting dates, just shoot me an email at jared@masslomap.org . . .
Just not over the next few days, as I’ll be otherwise occupied.
