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Decisions, decisions, decisions

Issue July 2015 By Beth M. Padellaro

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.