My First Post
Hello everyone. OklahomaSolo will be about starting and building a law practice in Oklahoma. I am currently about 1 year away from opening the Luke Anthony Law Firm in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
I will be opening my law office immediately after graduation (Dec. 2006...plus time to pass bar). There are lots of great bloggers out there ; but none addressed a step by step process for opening up a law office.
I'm pretty nervous. I don't have all the answers. I just know that I want to have a quality law firm with my name on the door. I'll be posting all my thoughts, successes, worries.
SO....come join me. Watch, read, advise (oh please advise!), and link up to OklahomaSolo.
posted by Luke Anthony at 3:28 PM
1 Comments:
Luke: Thanks for commenting on my Blog. I just published your comments. This is pretty cool; we can go through this thing together. However, you may be started up before I am. A solo practice has always been my goal. If you aren't aware, you will find that a lot of lawyers discourage opening up a practice right out of law school. Don't listen to them. If you have a plan and the drive, you will make it. Most will tell you that you should work for a firm for about 2-3 years and if you want, then go solo. To me that is three years gone from establishing your practice. Everyone has to start somewhere and the choice is to live the pain now or differ it for later. Live the pain!
As far as startup capital goes; I would look to minimize any loan activity beyond emergency credit cards (furnishings and so forth). There are a lot of resources that discuss how to go into solo practice with fewer startup costs. I am trying to crack the nut myself. However, friends tell me to get court appointed work early. Also, it is a good idea to seek work from other attorneys. I don't necessarily mean referrals; I mean do the work they don't want to for a fee. They will still make money, (1) because they are available to new clients as a result of your efforts, and (2)because your hourly rate is less than theirs. As a bonus, you will get good experience.
As a guide for first year salary, I say it varies. Some of my friends have done really well. I make about $75k per year in the military. My friends in solo make more. Some weeks they earn about $14k, and others much less. I have one friend who tells me that he has never seen a month for less than $4k.
Hope this was useful to you. Regards.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 6:35:00 PM
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