Being a law practitioner, one of the most critical factors in reaching your target market. Hanging your shingle can give you the freedom to practice what you want, but it also puts all the workload solely on you. Practice management can be quite stressful as a solo practitioner. Doing all the client work, managing funds, compiling documents, prepping, and preparing cases can be overwhelming, but the core of the stress is getting the clients.
Generating new clients or leads is essential for new as well as seasoned attorneys.
Before dwelling on the insights to attract clients, let’s consider the words from Nancy Baum Delian, an intellectual property and business law attorney.
“As an employee in a law firm, I would have been forced to work according to someone else’s timetable. As a solo, I still work long hours, but I set my schedule. Money is secondary to other things in my value system, and, for me, control over my time ranks high.”
The idea of success might differ for different people, and most people weigh success in terms of money. Pursuing excellence in your interest will help you become successful both career-wise and financially. Be not afraid of asking for help when feeling stuck in a problem.
To attract clients, here are the seven best tips that can help you achieve your goal:
Seek Inspiration, Execute and focus on details
Starting as a solo attorney might seem analogous to summiting Everest, but it brings all the perks of freedom, being your own boss, and envisioning an exciting future. The building phase is always challenging, but it will exhilarate you personally and professionally once it’s complete. The idea of building something that is your own and doing things the way you want is always inspiring.
Look around for the people in your practice who started small and are now enjoying a substantial professional status. Please keep your original thoughts in perspective that motivated you to go for solo practice; revisit them whenever you feel like giving up.
Starting your practice is not confined to setting up an office and waiting for luck to strike. The right execution of your professional practices, marketing strategies, and business plan will determine the success of your solo practice. Managing finances, being proactive towards client needs, staying productive, and utilizing the latest law practice technology are critical factors of successful business plan execution.
A good lawyer is somewhat a perfectionist in problem-solving. Focusing on small details can help you win cases for your clients and build your reputation and brand image. Ensure that you position yourself as a law firm, choose the right office, professional furniture, mode and tone of communication, social media handles, website, and printed content. These small details hold immense importance to establish your reputation as a brand.
Do not overlook the minor details in client work and referrals. Be diligent and professional in your communication with clients, use automation technologies to make sure you are on top of things.
Utilize Social Media
So, now that you are inspired, motivated, and ready to focus on execution as well as related details, the next stage is to attract public attention to your law firm. Utilizing social media is one of the most efficient and convenient modes of reaching out to people.
Social media can profoundly affect the number of people you can reach and the potential leads you can generate. Using social media for your branding offers three great incentives:
- You reach people directly and create a personal connection with your potential clients. The personalization of professional interaction is essential in trust-building.
- You can pitch your ideas to potential clients. The directness of the platform allows people to interact with you on a personal level.
- You have the ability to run ad campaigns and monitor the analytics, targeting a specific pool of people to expand your brand reach.
Building Your Network
Networking is an essential tool to meet potential clients, create a new connection with other attorneys, and generate mature leads or referrals. Socializing with the right people in your field historically is the most powerful tool a solo attorney can utilize. So don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and rub elbows.
As a beginner, start attending local business events and communicate your law firm’s ideology and practice theory. Joining local business groups and chambers of commerce is another way to interact with influential people from various business communities. These events will open doors for you and will help establish your relationship with potential referral partners who can direct potential clients to you.
One strategy is to select people who can direct customers related to your core solo practice. An example is, if you practice land & property laws, then estate dealers are an excellent resource to have in your networking arsenal.
Content Marketing and Blogging
One of the proven and most valuable methods of attracting traffic or expanding your brand’s organic footprint is to let the public know of your expertise. This can be achieved by blog content. The more valuable the content, the more likely it will be read. Followers of your blog can also become your passive referral partner and help you gain beneficial leads.
If you don’t have enough time to publish substantial content on your websites, then seeking help from viable publishing companies like Research Prospect is a great way to get value-rich content up on your website. Actively looking for lead generation via Google searches or social media, blogging, and engaging in effective SEO is essential.
Always prioritize your reputation
Being a lawyer, your most significant attribute that will attract clients is your reputation. Once your reputation gets a dent, it becomes complicated to repair the damage that has been done.
Your reputation will follow you everywhere; anything you do in one courtroom will subsequently affect what you will do in the next. It has been psychologically observed that humans are prone to share negative experiences more than positive encounters.
So, in the developing years of your solo practice, try to forge a reputation that will help you stand out from the crowd in the future rather than making choices that might haunt you for the rest of your career.
Honesty is the best policy.
Always be upfront with your clients. If you made a mistake, communicate it with the client and try to find a solution together. The pivot of the attorney-client relationship is trust. Make sure that you sought help when feeling stuck.
Be choosy when selecting your clients.
Many young, up and coming solo attorneys are not selective in choosing a client. They hastily try to secure a client. This approach might lead to disastrous output as many clients are not what they seem at first.
A better approach to secure the right clients is to put your prospective clients through an in-house screening process and make sure that you select only clients who are promising both from a practice point of view and the project’s financial outlook. Remember that quality is always better than quantity.
Although as a beginner, these pointers might seem daunting these suggestions help you gain momentum and secure clients that will lay the foundation of your law firm.
As a solo attorney, just hanging his/her shingle, it is understandable that one might make mistakes along the way. Still, the mantra to success is to learn from the mistakes, make better decisions in the future, and create a name for yourself in the process.
