How This New Lawyer Branded Her Firm With Aloha and Built a Happy Practice | First Flight #4

Episode Notes

Transcript

Adriana Linares:

Hello and welcome to New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I’m Adriana Linares, legal technology trainer and consultant. I hope lawyers and law firms use technology better. I want to thank our partners in developing the New Solo first flight series for solo attorneys presented by ALPS Insurance. They’re interested in helping solos and small law firms get the best start to their practices. We curated the best 12 episodes for new solos in partnership with Alps. We’re highlighting a portion of this episode with Cassandra Michel now she’s Cassandra Koenig. She does amicable divorces in San Diego and has a unique promotional strategy that suits her style. Well, these are some good tips. We hope hearing this again is a good reminder or if you didn’t catch it the first time, I’m sure it’s going to be helpful. Now stay through to the end. When I sit down with Rio Laine from Alps Insurance, Rio and I will get into three things. The importance of being self-aware enough to build a practice that really fits your personality. How firing a client can actually help you grow your practice and are top things that could help through you when sharing office space. And now my interview with Cassandra Koenig, who promoted her new law practice in unique ways and built the practice that works for her. It’s so nice to meet you in person because you are one of my favorite follows on Instagram.

Cassandra Koenig:

Oh, thank you.

Adriana Linares:

That’s how I found you. And I want to make sure to talk and ask you a little bit later about how you use social media for your marketing and the success that I hope you’ll tell us you have had as well as other marketing efforts. But let’s just start out with you telling us a little bit about yourself. So you went straight from law school to launching your solo practice.

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

So when you were thinking about it, what were you considering? What were the important factors for you, which I’m sure a lot of listeners will be interested in hearing and hopefully say Oh yeah, me too. Me too, me too. Because it’s a big hard thing to take on right out of law school. Obviously not impossible, as I tell new lawyers all the time, you’re going to be fine, you’re going to make it. But that was a big decision. So what were some of your biggest factors in deciding to go solo?

Cassandra Koenig:

Sure. Well, I started to thinking about it while LawClerk during law school and I was seeing what the partners would bill the associate attorneys at and how much they were getting paid hourly. And that’s what gave me the red flag. I was like, Ooh, didn’t like that idea.

Adriana Linares:

You don’t want to be working for the wool man or the man.

Cassandra Koenig:

And then I’ve been meeting a lot of people through networking events and I noticed that people at the larger law firms, they are up working 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM and just going crazy over the hourly requirements.

So I also thought about going to a small law firm thinking, okay, I’ll just work a bit less and I’ll be able to go surfing and go to the beach and maintain friendships. And then again, that hourly pay versus what you’re being charged, you don’t really see it. So that’s what got me into thinking, branching my own and all that. Then during law school, I started my own company called Little Miss Notary. So I was familiar with how to start a business, do a business plan and all of that. So that’s what got me the courage to just kind of launch it.

Adriana Linares:

So you actually built a business plan, which most lawyers don’t do. So you actually went through it. Did you do it yourself or did you get some help writing that business plan?

Cassandra Koenig:

I had a model business plan actually from theBar Association.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, cool.

Cassandra Koenig:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

From San Diego.

Cassandra Koenig:

Yeah, San Diego Bar Association. So I found their template and just kind of went off that and just changed it up a little bit and made it my own.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. And I should remind everyone that not only would San Diego have it, but many bar associations likely your state bar and certainly out on the Law practice division’s website for the A law practice division, they would have templates you could start with as well. So good. Okay, so you’re in law school and getting ready to get out and you realize that you’re going to be helping someone else make a lot of money, you form a business plan, you had already had a business little Miss Notary that’s really clever and cute. So you were doing notarizations for a fee, which is smart and great, and so you had your foot in the ground with at least how to start a small business.

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes, exactly.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, excellent. And what kind of law did you decide to practice family

Cassandra Koenig:

Law

Adriana Linares:

And the name of your law firm is

Cassandra Koenig:

Aloha Divorce.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, I love that. Tell me why.

Cassandra Koenig:

Because it means hello and goodbye and also love. And my goal is to focus more on more amicable divorces and eventually get into mediation.

Adriana Linares:

I love that and I love that. That’s exactly what you have on your website. You write on your homepage. The word aloha actually has three meanings. Love, hello and goodbye. Our goal is to help our clients say goodbye to their unhappy relationships and hello to a new beginning. We’re committed to providing empathetic and passionate representation with Aloha during this transition. It’s so clever, it’s so inviting and you have such a nice personality. Your clients must enjoy meeting with you. You don’t seem threatening or mean. Do you ever get a client that comes in and goes, I want a real bulldog for my divorce?

Cassandra Koenig:

I don’t know. Not yet. Luckily. And I’m hoping that the Aloha divorce name steers those type of clients away, they know what they’re getting right off the bat.

Adriana Linares:

That’s really smart. So you mentioned, I think earlier in the green room as I call it, that while you were in Tahoe getting ready to launch and thinking about launching, you were out there building your brand. So choosing your law firm name, Aloha, divorce, and then getting the domain name, which was obviously available must have been part of that. But what else did you do in order to help start building that brand and thinking about an official launch during a pandemic?

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes, I started looking into marketing and starting my social media accounts and figuring out how I’m going to get clients, where are they going to come from

Adriana Linares:

And how’s it going so far?

Cassandra Koenig:

It’s going really

Adriana Linares:

Well. I’m actually having to refer some out,

Cassandra Koenig:

Which is great.

Adriana Linares:

Oh my god, you haven’t even had your law firm for a year and a half or so. Okay, so how’s that happening?

Cassandra Koenig:

Most of my clients actually come from other attorneys,

Adriana Linares:

So it’s good to hear affirmation yet again. That is truly one of the best ways to get clients. So what did you do as far as networking and how were you able to do that during the pandemic?

Cassandra Koenig:

Well, I’ve actually started networking and I knew that concept in law school. I was coming from Albany, New York, and then when I got to law school, I didn’t know it a single soul. So I knew it was important to make connections and build relationships. So I would go to the lawyers club.com, consumer attorney san diego.com, of course the County Bar Association and look up all their networking events. Because you’re in law school, you typically have a law school membership, which allows you to attend all these nice events for basically nothing. So that’s when it really started was I hit the ground running as soon as I moved here.

Adriana Linares:

That’s amazing. And so smart too. Again, all those resources you mentioned are great places to meet people and start getting those referrals. So what about social media? How has that worked out so far for you?

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes, I’ve actually had a few referrals through social media as well, which is funny. I knew it was possible, but I was like, you’re going to find me on Instagram. You find your attorney on Instagram, but hey, I’ll take it. Yes. Yeah, I started a Facebook page and Instagram and Twitter primarily on Instagram. Instagram was easy. It’s free. I’ve always enjoyed it. There’s not much to it. The one app I would recommend is Canva, and that’s where you can put your logo on pictures, you can do quotes and different kind of real marketing. And then I blend it into my everyday kind of pictures where I’m out and about at fundraisers so people get a feel for me in general, not just divorce facts or inspiration or quotes.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, you have a great Instagram, like I told you, that’s how I found you too, of course. But you’ve got it in front of me. So I’m just going to break down a few things. You’ve got a perfectly good profile. You’ve got your location, a hashtag, a phone number, an email. Your website is Aloha divorce and an address, and then you have a bunch of the collections, divorce, humor, aloha, divorce books, divorce tips, and then your posts themselves are what you just described. It’s a mix of you being out there and being part of the community. And then you do a question and answer. So here’s one that says what is considered the date of separation in a California divorce? And then so that’s on the picture, which I’m assuming you built on Instagram. And then you’ve got just a real simple one, maybe two paragraph explanation to get people’s appetites wet as they’re thinking about this going through this.

So it’s great and looks like you sponsor things. Oh, let’s talk about that real quick because here you are, this was October 11th and I see you at a table. It says Aloha, and you’ve got giveaways, you’ve got booze. Who wouldn’t want to stop and talk to you? Was this a golfing event and you sponsored a hole or something like that? Exactly, yes. Okay. And so tell me, because again, people are not going to believe these things actually work are doing events like this and you have to spend money, you’re spending money on something like this. So how do you pick what is worth your money as an opportunity to put your name out there in front of potential referrals or

Cassandra Koenig:

Clients? Well, the way I measure it, I take the cost of that. So for that cost was about $600 to have my name on the pamphlets, have the hole, and it actually came with a bartender with the booze. So I didn’t have to bring my own booze. I got to pick a theme, which was Margaritaville. The way I look at it is if I get one client out of this, it doubles the cost.

Adriana Linares:

Exactly. It’s totally worth it. So that’s great. Well, I encourage everyone to go check out Aloha Divorce and follow you on Instagram. You’ve got a great mix of informative, frequently asked questions showing off your personality and the things that you like to do, and it’s very colorful and it, it’s a great mix of media. So good job. Cassandra, tell me, it looks like you’re sitting in an office, so we’re on Zoom of course, when we record this or you have a really nice office in your home, what are you doing?

Cassandra Koenig:

I’m in a office outside of the house. I actually had an experience when I had a home office that kind of steered me into this office, and it happened when I was in a virtual trial and my internet cut out. That can’t happen.

Adriana Linares:

No, that cannot happen. So you got scared and decided, oh, I should probably go into an office where there’s a solid connection and hopefully they have a backup internet connection and that’s exactly Okay. Okay. That’s

Cassandra Koenig:

Great. So it’s nice and it’s also takes a lot of, I guess, workload off of me too, because my office space, it’s a shared office space, so it’s through barrister executive suites, which I thought the name was fitting.

Adriana Linares:

Yes, very.

Cassandra Koenig:

As an attorney, however, you do not need to be an attorney to rent one of these offices. There’s chiropractor psychologists. It’s a variety, but what’s nice is it comes with a receptionist who answers all my calls, screens them. If it’s a sales call, she knows just to put it to voicemail or take a message for clients and she doesn’t cold transfer call. She’ll give me a heads up, so-and-so’s on the line, which is really nice. Also, when clients come in to meet me, they get to see a receptionist who gives them water or coffee while they wait. And then we have conference rooms too, which is great for mediations, any depositions, anything like that that comes with just renting the space

Adriana Linares:

And all those things. People ask me, of course all the time, should I stay virtual? Go brick and mortar. And it really, it depends, right? So if those things are important to you or if you’re going to have a lot of face-to-face client meetings, then it is really nice to provide them with a nice experience when they come in. Do you mind telling us approximately how much you pay? And you can just say ballpark, but I’m just wondering for people who have considered going the shared office space route, what that might cost.

Cassandra Koenig:

Sure. Total is $1,200, but it includes a phone line, again, a receptionist and the space and the internet

Adriana Linares:

And a printer and a copier and probably unlimited amounts of coffee in the fridge. And surely there’s a ping pong table somewhere in there or something.

Cassandra Koenig:

Exactly, yes. I have my own printer and fax machine just in case something comes through, no one else sees it, but it does have that feature if you were willing to share it with other people too.

Adriana Linares:

And do you come in every day? Do you have a dedicated office? Lemme back up, or do you use a hot desk?

Cassandra Koenig:

I have a dedicated office that I got to decorate and I love it and I come in every day 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM I stick to it. That was another thing that I’ve noticed as I’m much more productive here than at home because when I’m home, I’ll have my crazy husky barking at me. She’s in the background, all of a sudden I’m doing laundry. Just

Adriana Linares:

I thought you were going to say my crazy husband goes crazy husky. Yeah, I find that. So I work from home only and I love it, but I certainly find myself like, oh, that plant has some dead leaves on it. I should take 20 minutes out of my day right now and get that plant some attention. So for sure it can be a factor in deciding whether to stay at home or go brick and mortar, which is totally an individual choice. Of course. A couple more questions just about your experiences. And lemme just start with family law. What are the types of things you wish you knew from launch about family law specifically and getting into that area of practice?

Cassandra Koenig:

I wish someone told me when to say no. I noticed at first, I was just so excited to get a client. I was taking anything that came through the door. So I did learn to set boundaries and know when a client’s not for me and they’re not going in it with aloha, let’s just say that, right? You

Adriana Linares:

Got to walk in this door with aloha if you want to aloha, okay, if you want to stay, you’re going to have to walk in with the right attitude. That’s really nice. Did you decide to do sort of amicable divorces because so many people have contentious divorces or did you think if I’m going to do family law, I want to try and make it as pleasant as possible? Or did you just find that enough lawyers weren’t advertising themselves as being friendly divorce lawyers?

Cassandra Koenig:

A little bit of both, but primarily I noticed with more contentious divorces, divorces, it was taking a toll on me and I was feeling the same emotions that my client was feeling. It was draining and it was emotional and it just wasn’t, I have to know my personality and what I’m built for and I’m not built for that kind of stress and emotion, so I trust That’s

Adriana Linares:

Really

Cassandra Koenig:

Smart. Yeah, that’s when I learned you got to turn those away and send them to the appropriate person for them. And there are attorneys that I know who

Adriana Linares:

Special are bulldogs.

Cassandra Koenig:

Yeah, exactly.

Adriana Linares:

How do you say no to someone when they walk in and you’re like, no, here’s someone else. How do you say it?

Cassandra Koenig:

I reiterate their concerns and I kind mimic their goals to remind them what they just told me. And then I reiterate kind of what my practice is focused on and how they need to find the best attorney for them and how as much as I would love to represent them, I want to help them. I just know I wouldn’t be as good of attorney as someone else would be and it wasn’t in their best interest to use my services.

Adriana Linares:

That’s very brave. It’s brave from every angle. It’s brave to say, I’m not the right attorney for you. It’s brave to say no and it’s brave to say, here’s someone who can be a better fit for you. So that’s great. What advice would you give yourself now or any other new solos a year later about launching your practice?

Cassandra Koenig:

The advice I would give is find a mentor first and foremost. Start a business plan, make sure you have time blocks during this process. Make sure you have all of your ducks in a row before launching because if you don’t, you’re going to be scrambling and then you’re feeling lost and potentially getting malpractice. Yeah, let’s

Adriana Linares:

All avoid that. So Cassandra, tell me what did you decide as or how did you decide how to build your technology stack? So tell us about what you chose to use. You’re a Mac?

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

And then what about practice management? Do you have Office 365? Are you a Google Workspace user? Give us the lowdown.

Cassandra Koenig:

Sure. I actually learned all the tech that I wanted to use through your podcast. Yeah, hands in the air, everybody. I am doing the muscles. Yay. I would listen to your podcast almost religiously anytime driving. So it was always on. So I’m pretty sure I’ve listened to every single one of them. Good. I’m glad. Okay, so what did you go with Clio. Okay, good choice. Love it. Do the Clio Grow Plus and manage you need both. What I like about the manage portion, it helps find where your referrals are coming from. It does kind of, I guess I forget the word I’m looking for, but it tracks your efforts with marketing so you can see what’s working, what’s not working, how many clients called in didn’t retain you. It helps track all of that from the managed portion.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, so you got Clio, both the suite. So you’ve got Clio Grow to help you with your intake and manage the initial intake process. Then you push them over into Clio Manage once they become a client. Do you find that a lot of people are paying by credit card?

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. And do you use the client portal?

Cassandra Koenig:

No. Clio is actually changing that soon or has changed it recently. So I haven’t played too much with the client portal, but I do use LawPay that integrated it with Clio and then I use the link that Clio allows you to click on to send to the client and it just automatically sends it to them, lets them refill their retainer or just do the monthly invoice.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. And are you charging by the hour or are you doing flat rate or both? Or either.

Cassandra Koenig:

It depends. So for prenups and postnup it’s a flat rate. And then for divorces it’s a retainer and then hourly.

Adriana Linares:

How did you decide to work that method?

Cassandra Koenig:

By asking other attorneys, many, many other attorneys how they do it and then taking all that information and figuring out what everyone was saying was the best.

Adriana Linares:

So you took a bunch of advice, a bunch of advice, yes. Massaged it and then built a system that works for you. Very good. What other technologies do you use that you can’t live without? What are your

Cassandra Koenig:

Others? My others is my Google Drive. That’s where I keep my files. I use Google for basically everything.

Adriana Linares:

So you’re a Google Workspace subscriber?

Cassandra Koenig:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Do you even have Office 365 for word or do you just use sheets and docs? I mean Google

Cassandra Koenig:

Docs. I use Office 365 for word. And then another thing that you taught me in one of your podcasts too was it’s a program that can connect with your word Grammarly. There it is, Grammarly, lifesaver. Love it. I think every attorney should have that as well.

Adriana Linares:

Agreed. And I love and I pay for the professional version of Grammarly, I think it’s 1 29 a year, but recently Microsoft itself introduced what I think is their version of a Grammarly killer. And in Word it is called editor and it does a lot of the same things that Grammarly did. So if there’s someone out there who is really trying to keep their budget tight and you are using Word, something like that is built into Word now it’s called editor, but it’s only available inside Word. The good thing about Grammarly is you can use it anywhere if you’re doing a web form or an Outlook or anywhere else, Grammarly is available and I think that’s really helpful. And then two other products I’ll throw out there just for listeners that I really like too, and Cassandra told me if you’ve used these or looked at them, these are not free, but they’re also not very expensive.

Our word rake, which is built specifically for helping remove and clean up legalese from legal documents. It’s really good. And I’ll tell you, I’ll just give a quick testimonial. My boyfriend’s had been practicing law for a long time and when I got word rake, I ran one of his documents through it and I was totally expecting like any lawyer to say, oh, well no, the way I wrote it is definitely better. His response was, huh, well I like the way I wrote it, but this does make a couple of good suggestions and also brings me back to my basic legal writing rules that I learned when I was in law school. So he actually didn’t mind it. So that’s word rape and then perfect. It is like the blue book of grammar and writing and what that one is good for. Let’s say you have a bunch of bullets in your document and some of them had a.at the end and some of them you forgot the.it goes through and it says, Hey, you’re not consistent.

Do you want the dots? Do you not want the dots? Do you want a dash or do you want an M dash? So it kind of cleans up the document a lot visually. So those are two, those are four great tools we just mentioned Grammarly editor, that’s built into Word both web and cloud and desktop. Perfect. It and Word are all helpful. And I mean in totality, if you were going to buy the professional version of Grammarly and those other tools, you’re not going to pay more than $500 for the whole year for all those services. So those are great. Okay, so you’ve got Clio, the suite, you’ve got la, you love Grammarly, so you run a very lean tech-wise office. Clio does most of what you need for client intake, managing referrals, managing dates, deadlines, case details, and then your documents. A lot of them come from the forms that either you have had or you get through lawyer.

Cassandra Koenig:

Exactly, yes.

Adriana Linares:

Damn girl, that’s pretty good.

Cassandra Koenig:

Thank you.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, no, it’s great. Okay, so you also got a phone line that was something I was going to ask you about. Do you answer your own phone? Do you give your clients your cell phone number? Do they text you? I mean I know family law can be really personal and sometimes family lawyers get either really close in like yes, my client can text me anytime or you kind of stay back a little bit. How do you handle it? Communications.

Cassandra Koenig:

I do a case by case. Most of my divorces are amicable, so they don’t really need an emergency hotline. I do have a dedicated line that’s not my personal phone, but it comes through to my personal phone so they can text me on this line, but I can turn it off or on. But typically I’ll give the basic physical phone for my office and then certain clients I’ll give the separate number where they can reach me at my cell phone.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, that’s great. Texting comes up a lot with attorneys and I think the response is always, well, clients want to be able to text. Do you get clients that text you a lot, the ones that you want to text you or is it a request? Lemme put it that way.

Cassandra Koenig:

I usually offer it before they request it, and I think that they really appreciate being able to contact me and it’s easier for them to reach me. And I prefer texting over email, especially if it’s urgent, which is nice. But yeah, I think it’s important for my client to feel like they can reach me whenever they need to. What’s the point of having an attorney you can’t get ahold of?

Adriana Linares:

Yes, we could ask many a client that question and many of them would come back with unfavorable responses. Do you have an assistant or a virtual assistant of any sort or are you a true solo?

Cassandra Koenig:

I am a true solo.

Adriana Linares:

And how are you doing that? I’m sure a lot of people are going to ask.

Cassandra Koenig:

I’m enjoying it. I like the aspect of doing my own billing. I’m doing my own marketing, the billing. I like to do it myself because I’m a control freak and a little OCD and I want things done exactly how I want it. I want to know what’s happening. I want to know where everything is. The marketing I enjoy, I like doing the pictures and kind of coming up with creative ideas. It helps me stay creative and my mind flowing. And then you have the legal work, you wear many hats and it keeps life fun.

Adriana Linares:

How do you balance all those hats that you have to wear? I’m sure a lot of people think, oh God, I’m so busy doing legal work, there’s no way I can do my marketing. But do you have scheduled time for marketing? How do you manage?

Cassandra Koenig:

Well, at first I was feeling out of control. I was forgetting to do some things. It was just not manageable. And then I started time blocking and it saved my life. It just made me feel more in control. I have to-do lists or certain hours are blocked off. And that’s what I used to do when I was studying for theBar exam and I just kind of implemented that. I would actually write in my calendar, you are going to the gym at this time and you’re working out. You are going to meditate for five minutes during this block. So I notice if I don’t do that, I’ll forget and it’ll just get past me and then I’ll be feeling out of control. Overly stressed where time blocking makes me feel more in control and relaxed and more productive.

Adriana Linares:

How did you learn about time blocking?

Cassandra Koenig:

It was actually through my bar prep. It was through one-timers I used for bar prep and it was a coach who kind of did it for you and made sure all of his students were doing it. And then just after I passed theBar, I kind of forgot about it and then I was again feeling out of control some days and feeling overly stressed, overwhelmed, and then I remembered time blocking and I did it and it kind of changed everything for me.

Adriana Linares:

That’s a really good tip and really important habit to start from the beginning of launching a law practice. A lot of times my job is breaking bad habits that attorneys have been practicing for 10, 15, 20 years. And when you start off with really good habits from the beginning, they stick and you’ll definitely do much better. I think that’s such great advice. So that was a great conversation. You heard me have with Cassandra Michelle. Now she goes by Cassandra Kig. She’s a solo family lawyer and owner of Aloha Divorce in San Diego. I hope you got some good reminders about creating branding and promotions that work for you. She does such a great job. This episode is part of the New Solo first flight series presented by Alps Insurance. I’m joined by Rio Laine, director of strategic partnerships at Alps. Rio. You’ve met a lot of attorneys over the years, especially solos. What were tactics that you felt Cassandra used that really stood out as best practices?

Rio Laine:

So I have to say I loved this interview with Cassandra. She’s just so vibrant and such an interesting person. I really, really appreciated her approach to life. She’s very independent and I think that really works for her well in her practice. Something that I really appreciated and admired and that really stood out to me was that she seems to really know herself in her law firm. She talks about she’s an amicable person. She wants to do Amic amicable divorces. She’s not the kind of person that wants to go and tear it down in court and have a knock down drag out fight. She wants to work with amicable people who are just splitting for whatever reasons. But as long as it’s on a good footing. And I really, really appreciate that because it means a lot of different things for her practice that are really setting her up for success at first.

She knows what kind of client she wants. That’s big. That’s a big deal indeed. I know indeed. We’ve talked about this before. I mean, when you’re starting your law firm, so many lawyers just, I’ll take whoever walks through the door and oftentimes that’s not really the best approach because maybe their case or their issue isn’t really in line with where you want to specialize. Maybe they are not a good fit for you. So attracting the right clients really helps her kind of start things off on the right foot and really kind of setting herself up for success. And not only that, but being able to turn a client away is a very important skill that lawyers need to hone. And it’s uncomfortable. It can be awkward and unpleasant, but it really does benefit your practice in the long run because it allows you to push forward into specializing in an area that maybe you’re passionate about that you want to focus on and building the practice that you want. Not only that, but having good clients and specializing, as we all know, reduces your chances of malpractice claims. It allows you to really focus and know what you’re doing to do what you do well, and that makes a really big difference.

Adriana Linares:

I agree with you wholeheartedly from so many tips and stories that I hear from experienced attorneys. Not only knowing what kind of client you want to work with is important and being able to filter those in and out, but the other sort of great side effects that come from doing that when you’re building and as you continue to grow your law practice is being able to refer work and building your referral network at the same time as you have a client that just doesn’t fit perfectly. And I don’t know that any one ever will, but you know what I mean, that doesn’t fit just right into that. Great. Well, if they’re close enough and you can wiggle ’em in and it’s going to make for a great legal relationship, fine. But if not, and you know that they will make a great client for someone else, and that’s a really good opportunity to build a really great referral network, which is critical for success. And then the other thing I’ll say, which I don’t want to talk about too much, but I just want to remind attorneys, being able to fire a client, being able to also remove yourself from a situation, a case that you’re not comfortable with also can create an opportunity for you to refer them to someone who’s going to handle that case better and also put you in a better place mentally and not take on any extra stress because you have a client that you don’t enjoy working with.

Rio Laine:

Oh yeah, absolutely. And reducing your stress is paramount when you’re running a law firm. There’s a lot of things to be stressed about and your clients should not be one of them or should be, ideally not one of them. Another thing that I noticed that Cassandra did that a lot of attorneys I think don’t do is she had a business plan, right?

Adriana Linares:

Yes.

Rio Laine:

And I mean, obviously we think about business plans and they can be kind of boring. I mean, let’s be honest, it’s not the most exciting thing about running your law firm, starting your law firm. You just want to get out there and go and move forward. But they can be a nice thing to have in a nice tool to allow you to think through all the different pieces that you’re going to need to consider when you’re starting your business. So they’ll let you give you time to think about your financing, how are you going to do your marketing? Where are you going to get your clients? Are you going to have a physical business, a physical office, you going to be a virtual firm, et cetera. I think if you really are having trouble bringing all your thoughts together, a business plan is a really good place to put all those things together and consider them and work through those pieces that you’re unsure about. I will mention, obviously that Alps, I was going to ask you

Adriana Linares:

Alps. Yeah, I was going to say, where could I find one? Because I think those are harder to find than you think. I mean, you can Google them of course, but if there is a trusted resource that might have a business plan for law firms, we need to know about it.

Rio Laine:

Yeah, well, surprise Alps has them.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. I did not know that.

Rio Laine:

Yeah, so we do actually have a business plan kind of template and guide for starting your law firm. And it’s specific to law firms, which often, if you just Google business plan, don’t always consider a law firm. So yeah, if you go to alps insurance.com/resources, you will find lots of information on putting together your business plan, what things you need to think about, and also information on how to contact our Alps risk manager, mark Bassing weight, who is always happy to answer any questions you have about starting your practice, putting your business plan together, thinking about those different pieces that you might want to consider. I will also mention, I got to give a shout out if your bar association has a practice management advisor chat with them as well. They’ve got lots of great resources and are a really, really excellent resource for you if you have any questions or need that extra little bit of support if you do decide to put together a business plan.

I mean, obviously they’re not mandatory, but they can be very, very helpful, particularly if you get started, you’re running your law firm and then you’re like, oh my gosh, where am I going? What am I doing? What do I want to do with this business? It can be helpful to look back and say, oh yeah, I did have an idea about this and things haven’t turned out the way I thought they would. Maybe I need to change that, et cetera. So business plan, it can be a good thing to have if you feel like you need one.

Adriana Linares:

Well, let me ask you another question, because at the time of this airing of this show, Cassandra was sharing an office with other legal professionals or other professionals, and a lot of people do that. I think it’s a great way to keep costs low today. So at the same time, I know there are some risks that are certainly inherent to sharing office space and office resources outside of your law firm, right? So let’s say I have an accountant that’s in my share space and an insurance professional. What are some of the things we should consider, especially from a risk management point that we need to talk about and know about before signing a lease or a contract for that shared space?

Rio Laine:

Absolutely. So the biggest one really that comes to mind is client confidentiality, right? We have a duty to keep client information confidential. So what that means is that you might need a separate wifi, right? Do you have secured protected wifi? You don’t want to be sharing wifi with everybody in that office space. How is that going to work? Are you sharing hardware? Are you sharing equipment? Ideally, you don’t want to be doing that. How are you going to keep your clients’ information meetings you have with your clients, et cetera, private? I mean, thinking about things like are there walls in this shared working space? How thin are they? Yes, how thin are they? What is the level of privacy that you have in this shared space that really should be top of mind? Because obviously you don’t want to run afoul of your duties to your profession.

So thinking about things like that and then also thinking about business insurance. So maybe the shared space that you’re working in already has some type of office insurance or insurance space, but it is a really good thing to consider business insurance specifically for your law firm in that space. If in the event that something does happen, that something goes sideways, maybe some information gets shared that shouldn’t be, maybe there’s disclosure of something that shouldn’t have been. So having that business insurance in place just in case is a really, really good thing to be thinking about.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. Well, I know that Alps Insurance has a ton of good resources and a community in the making, so do you want to remind everybody where those are, how to get to those, and also how to get to you if they have any questions they want to follow up on with you?

Rio Laine:

Yeah, absolutely. So if you’re looking for resources for your law firm, you can go to alps insurance.com/resources. We’ve got a lot of really great stuff on there. We’ve got blog articles, lots of guides, lots of helpful information for you all accessible, help yourself. There’s plenty there. We’re also working on a community for solo and small attorneys. This is an online community called Attorney Hero. It’s a place where lawyers can come together to just discuss with each other, ask questions, get their questions answered, find mentors, create business connections, and also hear from different industry experts and just learn kind of the nitty gritties about running their law firm and how to navigate all of the challenges and the joys, the highs and lows that come with that. And lastly, don’t be shy. I love to answer questions. I love it when people reach out to me. You can reach me at R Lane, LAIN [email protected].

Adriana Linares:

Well, Rio, always a pleasure to chat with you and help enlighten us as new solos or even existing solos that are always looking for new tips and suggestions to run your growing while practice. So thank you so much for your time. And listeners, if you’ve enjoyed this episode, make sure you tell your friends about New Solo and we’ll see you next time on New Solo

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