Getting Work as a Lawyer

A recently admitted lawyer in Ohio had gone on the Bar Association's Solo and Small Firm list serv and posted a request for tips on how to get work.  This was my response, for what it's worth:

 

"Dear Amy:

 

While marketing your services as a lawyer is a process hampered by ethical land mines and a tradition of waiting to be called, there are some easy, inexpensive ways to get work.  First though, decide what broad kind of work you can do.  You can't take on work that you aren't able to do or aren't reasonably able to get prepared to do.

If you want criminal work, get on the court's appointment list.  It's low paid but filled with opportunities for experience and exposure.

For civil work, the biggest bang for your buck may be the local bar association's lawyer referral service.  Dayton's is 175 a year plus 10% of fees earned.  It is so worth the cost. Hundreds of times over.

Go to bar association events.  Go to the national ABA section events if you can afford it.  If you go, and you introduce yourself and make connections, then you quickly become a nationally known attorney.  Have a quick response to "what do you do?"  Be friendly with other lawyers.  Refer work to them.  Volunteer in a group or groups that do something you like. Speak up and take some leadership.  It isn't always quick, but exposure + competence = work.  Always be grateful for referrals. Call or send thank you cards to your referral sources. Refer back and speak well of them.

Write a blog, get a website that links to your blog, and then use a twitter account and a linkedin profile to mention your blog or website.  Write often and be real.  Read blogs by James Altucher.  Read his book "Choose Yourself".  It's five bucks on Amazon and it may change your life.  

Do good work, bill fairly, and deliver more than you promise.  Always, always do what you say you will.  Don't lie or cheat.  Lawyers and judges will know, and it will kill your career.  Don't chase low profit work or clients.  Analyze your practice areas for the highest profit for the least amount of time and effort, and then do that work most of the time.  Develop an expertise. Love it. For me that is FLSA litigation. For you it will likely be something different.

Charge a fee for consultations too. Make yourself valuable from the very first meeting.  If a potential client balks at 50-100-150 for your initial time, then you don't need them.  Exceptions of course, but charge as a rule.  

Finally, go to Dave Lorenzo's website and follow him on Twitter @TheDaveLorenzo, He is undoubtedly the best legal marketing mind.  Read all that he writes and do just part of it. You will get work and clients.

I do these things.  I believe in them and I have been successfully self employed, with luck and gratitude, since 2001.  

Good luck Amy.  Contact me if you'd like any more info. Although I think that is all that I have."

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Old movies with soldiers often saw drill sergeants relieve their squads with a jovial "at ease smoke em if you got em".

The same can be said for affirmative defenses.  If you have them as a defendant, then you should use them. Like the cigarettes in those old movies, you might not get to use them if you get killed in a battle.

For litigators it's more figurative.  But the civil rules of civil procedure in some state and all federal trial courts tell defendants that if they fail to raise affirmative defenses (with some substance thank you Iqbal and Twombley) then those defenses are waived and barred from later use.

Some lawyers may feel that they can "reserve the right to add defenses" in their answers.  Don't bet on it.  There is no such right to reserve.  The civil rules and the case law are fairly clear on this point.  Aggressive and unyielding plaintiffs' counsel will not stand by while affirmative defenses like good faith error, or acting on counsel's advice, or the plaintiff was exempt from overtime coverage because they were not performing the duties of an employee are raised well after the answer is filed.

Factually unsupported affirmative defenses are now just as troublesome as absent defenses. Thanks to the US Supreme Court's decisions in the Iqbal and Twombley cases (search those names and the cases will appear in google or any other halfway competent search engine) a formulaic recitation of elements of a claim or defense will be vulnerable to a motion to strike.

Use em if you got em.  If you don't, then expect my motion for judgment on the pleadings or a tough row to hoe at summary judgment and trial when your defenses are long buried by waiver.