Congratulations! You’ve decided to set out on a wonderful and terrifying journey of starting a law firm.
Where do you start?
First, you need a plan. What kind of practice do you envision: high volume or boutique? Do you want to focus on elder law issues, or are you more of a Trusts & Estates practitioner? Will you start by working from a home office, or dive right into leasing space and hiring a paralegal? The more strategic planning you can do at the onset, the less time and resources you will waste as you go through the early years of establishing your practice.
Most attorneys who launch their own law firms don’t do so right out of law school. They already have working relationships with clients and a few colleagues who they know will give them referrals. But to succeed, you’ll need more than a few referrals.
If your name is on the letterhead and the door, bringing in new clients is a major part of your new responsibilities. Our first recommendation: a really good website, and if possible, having it in place before or soon after you open your doors. As a new practice, you need to establish credibility early on, and legal consumers expect to see a well designed website that hits all the right marks.
Second, prepare to invest the time and resources into lawyer videos as soon as you can. Most established firms who deal with consumers have libraries of lawyer videos on their websites. Again, this establishes your credibility, overcomes the obstacle of not knowing you and will let your website be more productive than it would be without the videos.
Third, if you can’t manage the lawyer videos in terms of time or resources consider starting your practice with the E2 CRM to boost your marketing engine. This system will allow you to make the most out of every bit of marketing data on your prospects as they become clients. Your staff will not lose time to repetitive tasks and you will know what is working, from website to phone calls to office visits, and equally importantly, what is not working.
Get your new law practice started off on the right foot with these three steps! If you want to learn more about how IMS can help, call James at 877-352-2021 ext. 80.