Becoming a lawyer has its own set of stress factors and add to
that the stress of having to find employment. The Sole Practitioner
& Small Firm Section Council focuses on providing our members
with information to attorneys who find themselves practicing on
their own or decide to open a practice with another attorney,
whether by choice or by default. Once that decision is made the
decisions that follow are virtually boundless: location, client
base, technology, resources and staffing, not to mention the
financial backing required to start up this business. The Sole
Practitioner & Small Firm Section Council's mission is to study
the needs of sole and small firm practitioners, impart knowledge,
provide support and ideas, and listen to the needs and concerns of
those practitioners. By constantly engaging with our members our
council can assist the MBA so that these concerns/issues can be
addressed as they relate to this specific group of attorneys. The
ability to know/understand/utilize the law is taught in law school,
but the art of taking that knowledge and putting it to use in the
business world is a different matter. The Sole Practitioner &
Small Firm Section Council is focused on educating our members and
helping them put these pieces together, all while providing support
as it is needed.
No matter where your career takes you, every attorney's journey
began in law school. For me, my education started at a time when
technology was not as advanced as it is today. Recently, I found
myself perusing through some of my old files and came across a
paper I wrote in law school, the topic of which was "technology as
it related to legal research for the sole practitioner." How
fitting that I find myself today not only an active member of this
group, but an attorney in a small firm. I was brought back to a
time when Shepardizing a case meant actually visiting the law
library to determine whether the case was still good law. I do miss
those days of flipping through the pages and placing books upon
books on a table just to find the right cite.
Well, fast forward to today, Shepardizing a case now involves
the touch of a button. LexisNexis, Westlaw, Casemaker (provided by
the Massachusetts Bar Association) and several others now provide
that information with little more than a search term. There are
also a multitude of other resources to find statutes, whether it be
federal or state, or define a legal or other term, etc. All of this
can be done with the touch of a button. Even more amazing is that
today we have the ability to take these resources on the road, in
the air, on the water … anywhere (i.e., the "cloud"). The time has
come where an attorney can practice virtually anywhere: a home or
office, in the courthouse or sitting at a coffee shop, even the
beach. With the use of laptops, iPads, tablets and smartphones,
legal research is "mobile." This type of technology and our
accessibility to it allows attorneys to develop and step into the
"virtual office." Sole and small firm practitioners, both young and
old, can take advantage of all the benefits of being a lawyer,
whether it be in a virtual or a physical office. MBA seminars and
programs are developed to address the challenge that attorneys face
with the onset of the ever changing world of technology. More so,
our council, and the MBA in general, endeavor to educate attorneys
on best practices so that they can use technology wisely
allowing them to become more savvy and efficient businessmen and
women and ultimately better attorneys to their clients. With this
efficiency comes the financial burden one faces with "keeping up
with" technology, and this section council is always searching for
alternatives that are inexpensive or hopefully free.
This plays right into ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct,
Rule 1.1 Competence: "Competent representation requires legal
knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary
for the representation." The laws and regulations are constantly
changing and being updated to meet the needs of this virtual world.
Thus, it is part of our section council's mission to ensure that we
not only update and teach attorneys about using technology but, how
to do so ethically and not get into trouble. This year the section
council has presented programs that focused on the IOLTA rules,
fee-generating appointments in court and an upcoming program on the
use of Acrobat and open-source software. Each program can be
summarized as follows:
IOLTA -- Recent changes were made to these
rules which stressed the importance of staying current with the
IOLTA obligations. Not following these rules is the most common
reason for the Board of Bar Overseers to get involved. The program
reviewed the ways to avoid mishandling of IOLTA funds.
Fee-generating appointments -- These are
opportunities to expand your client base in the Massachusetts
Probate and Family Court, District Court, and Juvenile Court; learn
about the required qualifications, the application and training
procedures, and method of appointment; what the work entails; and
the process for payment.
Acrobat and open-source software -- Attendees
learned the benefits of Acrobat and how to avoid the pitfalls
surrounding the technology's encryption/email/security.They also
learned what open source software is available and how to access it
in the most economical manner.
The Network Directory Search resource was the brainchild of this
section council and was successfully set in motion by the former
chairman, Scott D. Goldberg. It can be found on My Bar Access, the
MBA's proprietary social media tool on the Sole Practitioner &
Small Firm Section's member group page, as well as on the pages of
each section council. It was put into motion almost two years ago
and it allows attorneys to connect with one another to discuss
their respective areas of practice, to meet on a more social level,
to "pick the brain" of another attorney who practices in a specific
area you are not familiar with or to just find some guidance. The
idea of networking involves more than just shaking someone's hand
and exchanging business cards. It involves mentoring new attorneys,
allowing an attorney to expand his or her knowledge in a certain
area of the law. More importantly it allows attorneys to bounce
ideas off one another about a current or future case. Our section
council's goal was (and is) to allow the Network Directory Search
tool to serve as a rolodex of attorneys, professionals and mentors
who can be called upon when a question or issue arises.
The section council has also come up with some general and
specific pointers that lawyers can use at any stage in their
practice. Council member Jeffrey J. Clark emphasizes that once the
decision is made to open your law practice, you will want to
carefully evaluate your area(s) of practice and your client base
before renting office space. Knowing whether your clients will be
local, from out of state, commercial or domestic, allows one to
determine the type of office space you require; are you visible for
walk-in traffic; is there parking available; how are face-to-face
meetings to occur; what type and how often will you be utilizing
telephone/video conferencing. A virtual office space may be an
option rather than a constant physical location.
Now that the office is open, the issue of materials, in
particular technology, comes into play. Do you need only a desktop,
and how many? What about staffing? What about being transitory?
Would a cell phone be an adequate addition? Is a tablet/iPad the
better choice? If a cell phone is used, is there an added need for
a landline? Then there's the confusion and frustration of what
software packages to pick, practice or case management. There are
also the issues of ensuring you have the proper protection
protocols and procedures to ensure compliance with your ethical and
moral obligations as a practicing attorney. Do you need a fax
machine? The Internet? How much, and what vendor to use? Who
provides the technical support for your office? The decisions are
boundless and specific to each attorney. No one size fits all,
especially given all the options that are out there today.
All in all, attending law school was a career choice that I
never regret making, but stepping out into the real (legal) world
and practicing as a sole/small firm has been an exhilarating
accomplishment. Our section council and the MBA are here to help
and to listen.