Home office?

Ok so the house we are going to live in is unique in that it has 2 offices attached to it. The offices face Highway and the house is behind the offices.
The house/office building is huge and modern styled. The house offers 3 bedrooms and vast living areas - plus 2 "bonus" rooms that could be used as a home office (we can put in a separate entry).
Alternatively, I could take one or both of the offices giving me a bit better exposure and larger signage.
I wonder how important this is? The cost difference is about 8K per year...and I'm wondering if the highway front would bring in that much extra business.
For now, the tentative plan is to home office for the first few months and see if I can turn a profit--then think about expanding.
btw: we know the place needs work! But we will have almost a year to fix it up. Anyone wanting to help is welcome :)

Is it tomorrow...or just the end of time?

Finals haze - all through my brain.

Sorry to keep the blog so id focused lately, but I am allowed to stumble a bit during finals, right?
I've 7 classes. 4 take home - 3 in class finals.

As of now I've 3 out of 4 take home finals turned in.

On another note: Tomorrow is a big day - I was supposed to attend the Ok Bar Law office management seminar in Oklahoma City. However I have to cancel because--

I have an INTERVIEW WITH THE D.A. in Stillwater (CHEERS). Very exciting! I really really really need a job. I need the money and the experience.

Next, it is pre-enrollment for kindergarten---wow..that scares me more than opening up a law office.

Then back to Tulsa for some coffee and corporate law (which is kind of like coffee - semi stimulating and likely to yellow your brain.)

When I'm in Stillwater--I'll try to take pics of my future residence and (proposed) office for a future post. --honestly, how do you contain your excitment?

Hooray...

Well I'm proud to say I've passed the legal intern exam. I wasn't sure I would...so a big sigh is in order. Now I am eligible to "practice" limited types of law so long as I find a supervising attorney. Sure wish I had one.

UNVEILING!

Ok everyone. I have had a TON of emails wanting to see my business plan...so I'm gonna show it to you. There are 7 parts; you get 4:
But before I show you I have a comment. Your critiques are encouraged I'm glad to have all the advice I can read. So please feel free to rip it up...this is my first draft of a business plan so let's improve it together. Last note (the projected revenue on the pro forma is of course ---speculation, but I believe it is informed speculation. Based on my data my numbers are conservative to medium. Also, Special thanks to the MANY attorneys who gave me thier imput on this. OK here goes. Just click the links to view my uploaded Business plan.
Part 1: NARRATIVE
Part 2: Pro Forma (w/office) OR Pro Forma (home office)
Part 3: START UP COSTS (actual startup costs from actual quotes! -- this sheet is what the $7000.00 office supplies are in month 1.
Part 4: RESUME
Part 5: Personal finances (Sorry, not posting that)
Part 6: Misc (this is also not posted but is listed in the narrative:) Lease Agreements/ PLLC
incorporation/ Actual quotes from various vendors/ et.al.
Part 7: Projected Balance Sheet: Not posting this either. It is basically a breakdown of
assets/cash/liabilities/depreciations/etc...(not finished..and officially on hold until after
finals!)

Full Steam Ahead-->

What a week! Belle and I announced to our landlord that we would be breaking our lease and moving to Stillwater. He was so supportive and kind. It goes to show you that if you pay your rent early every month,overseed the lawn, and plant flowers in the spring--even landlords can be generous!

Also, we have started procedures to get our new residence in Stillwater. There is a family there now so I'm unsure how long it will take them to move on but we are shooting for June 1st.

The Summer and Fall schedules came out this week. I have arranged my schedule so that I am only in Tulsa 2 days per week for each session. Sooooo....I should be able to get a reasonable part time job in Stillwater. (incidentally, no word from the Payne Co. DA...) I suppose the phone call and spectacularly packaged resume didn't get thier attention so I'll be making a personal call next week. Sometimes, you just have to wear them down until they reject or accept you.

Tomorrow I'm taking the legal intern exam so if all goes well I should have my "limited license" all but in hand.
Next week I have two finals due and the following week it really hits hard. Eddie Mello and I are still taking time to attend the OK-bar association's CLE New Lawyer Experience.
Check out the program through the link...it looks very exciting. Eddie and I are justifying the trip on the assumption that we will quiz each other over corporate law on the 3.5 hour road trip.

Business Plan

I'm almost done with my 1st year business plan. And I thought I'd pass along a few tips that were wind in my sails. This has been a HUGE endeavor and has taken so many more weeks than I though it would. Get a head start on this ASAP.
First Check out the business plan guide on my link (look to the right of your screen under links) . A business plan has two parts. Easy and Hard. The Easy part is the narrative. Telling a bank about your business, your location, yourself, etc. The Hard part is the financial statements. I'm no accountant--and had no idea where to start so I broke my financials into two parts: 1. individual cost of products/things and 2. fancy spreadsheets that clearly convey my expectations to a banker.
1.) Cost of things: If you've been reading OklahomaSolo you know how much my Yellow page ad will cost-- this is the type of legwork you will just have to do for yourself. One thing that can save you a lot of walking is to take a trip down to your local office supply store and get an order book. These books will walk you through every office item you need to open a law office and tell you how much you can expect to pay. So get out a pencil and write down a list of what you will be buying and how much it will cost.
2.) Unless you are an accountant your P&L (pro forma) projection will be baffling! You have to list everything that will be an expense to your business an compare them to your expected revenues. I suggest you go HERE to see one I like. Or you can search at the top of that page to see all the other forms Microsoft provides us for free.

So lets review: To get a business plan together Start w/a template, use order books for prices, and use templates for spreadsheets. These three tips will save you days of time. At least they did for me.

Credit Check/Gut Check

Want to start a law office? Me Too. Regardless of your knowledge of the law, we need MONEY! The most common place to get start up mony is from a bank. But before you go walking in and ask for some dough....find out what you are asking. What kind of credit risk are you? You need to pull your credit reports. Pulling your credit report used to cost money. Recently our government forced each of the 3 major credit bureaus give us one free credit report annually.
Yep, you can get a free credit report courtesy of the federal government. Thanks Congress!
It is important that you pull all three credit reports and scan them for errors. Also, Do it now! It is very common for errors to be on a credit report...but getting the errors taken off can take over a year!
When you apply for that loan the bank will pull your credit report. They will judge your creditworthiness based on that report. Don't go into that process blind. Know your credit and be ready to address any negative marks before your would be lender does.

Commuter News

Commuter news:
Belle and I have been having some gut wrenching talks lately about moving to Stillwater at the end of the semester. This presents some pros and cons. Since I'm kinda glass half empty minded, let's start with the negatives.

Cons:
1.Commute: The drive from TU to Stillwater is 1.25 hours. I've still got to take 7 hrs this summer and 15 in the fall to graduate early so it would be a lot of commuting for me. The gas money could potentially bankrupt me, plus if my '95 Ranger falls apart I would be hard to replace it.
2.We really like Tulsa, friends, shopping, umberto's pizza, etc.
3.We really like our house. We have a great landlord and a bunch of herbs/vegetables that are wondering if we are going to plant them.
4.We are in the middle of our lease.
5.I have no idea where we would live in Stillwater. We already have a place to move next year...but I'm unsure if it could be avail. This summer.
6.Rent would probably increase. And I don't like paying more money.
7.No one has a job in Stillwater...(I hear jobs are helpful for those of us w/o monthly trust fund payments).

Pros:
1.Living in Stw would help us get our network together and finally feel settled.
2. While commuting I can listen to 3hrs of NPR a day. Did I mention that I love public radio?
3.Allow me to gain some experience in the courthouse there. (I just sent my resume to a title company and the DA's office.---keep your fingers crossed).
4.Belle has applied for a few jobs, since she has worked in Stw for about ten years she has some contacts there who can help her.
5.My family is there. The Anthonys are such a prolific group in Stillwater, that there is practically an unincorporated “Anthony Foundation – Anthonys helping Anthonys” and I like the social/support system that accompanies a large family.
6.Fishing. Family pond/horses...barn karaoke (for my karaoke addicted Belle). It is fishing season and my father in law just gave me about a hundred bucks worth of tackle that is just sitting in my closet, (not many farm ponds around 31st and Harvard).

Anyway, we've decided to move as soon as one of us gets a job paying enough money to pay our bills. But we are going to have to time this thing just right or we will spiral into financial ruin. I've quit my job in the PD's office so the apron strings have been cut. Stay tuned to see if we sink or swim!

Pay now or pay later...but pay me now.

1 show cause hearing - 150 dollars
3 visits to county jail - 500 dollars
18 phone calls from clients ex wife - 225 dollars
Getting stiffed after plea agreement - Priceless

When I told my Real Estate professor Lou Reynolds that I would be opening up a solo following law school he gave me some advice I think is worth repeating. He said, "you need to remember --Trapping, Skinning, Collecting-- Because boy if you can't trap clients (find them in the wild) you are no lawyer. And if you can't skin your catch (effectively give legal advice) you are no lawyer. And if you can't Collect your bounty(get paid), you are no lawyer.
It is the collecting I'd like to talk about today. With all the trouble and endless complaints about getting clients to pay isn't it wonderful that Mastercard is there? There seems to be more and more lawyers that prefer to get paid up front with credit cards despite the fees associated with the privilege [sic] of accepting credit cards.
The rate at which they suck blood ...er charge rather....is disparate among firms. From what I can ascertain expect to pay around 1.75% - 3% plus a per transaction fee (about 25 cents) depending on type of card. A good tip that came up on Solosez last week was to comparison shop and make sure you look into your local bank (like the one with your client trust acct.).
If there is one thing I HATE it is paying money to anyone for anything...but here the tide of consensus is so overwhelming that even I must concede. However...I think I'll be encouraging Paypal, since their fees are supposedly the lowest.


Try this for a slogan. Your credit is good here, so long as it is secured.

Any stories out there from OklahomaSolo readers about credit card experiences? Post a comment or send me an email!

Cropping up...

Another solo blog has cropped up...check out soloestate, a blog about a 2L law student who plans on opening a law firm in TX focusing on Estate Planning. I especially like his Top Ten Ad Tips.
Good Luck!