72 The Alabama Lawyer 376 (2011). Going Solo: Do You Have What It Takes?.

• Author: By Laura A. Calloway

Alabama Lawyer

2011.

72 The Alabama Lawyer 376 (2011).

Going Solo: Do You Have What It Takes?

Going Solo: Do You Have What It Takes?By Laura A. CallowayEach year several hundred recent legal graduates become new lawyers in Alabama. For a small percentage of them, the road ahead is certain. Some know that they will return to their hometowns to join the family law practice. Many of those who graduated at the very top of their classes have managed to snag the relatively few well-paying associates jobs available with the handful of large firms in the state, while others have already lined up prestigious judicial clerkships which they hope may eventually lead to somber black robes of their own. What about the rest?

For many recent graduates, admission to the bar leads to what may feel like a game of musical chairs. They send out countless resumes to every legal employer in the county or counties in which they'd like to remain or settle, hoping to grab a chair of their own before the music stops. In the current environment, though, it often feels like there are far more players than there are chairs. Some will inevitably be left without a chair.

If you have recently passed the bar exam and the admission ceremony seems like a dead end rather than a transition to the exciting new career you were expecting, you may be considering hanging a shingle and starting a practice of your own. If so, there are a few questions you should ask yourself before you plunge in, as not everyone is cut out for solo practice.

Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit?

Many lawyers who decide to start a new solo practice believe that if they build it, clients will come. They approach opening a practice as if they were really law firm associates-just without the middle man in the form of a partner who assigns the work. These lawyers expect clients to come in knowing exactly what they need and to pay them in full at the end of the representation for the number of hours they've worked, regardless of the outcome of the matter, just as if they were on salary. Unfortunately, many of these lawyers spend most of their days sitting by the phone, hoping that it will ring.

As technology has become ubiquitous in the law firm, many types of legal work that used to be "custom-made" have become commodities. Whether it's residential real estate closings, simple wills, uncontested divorces or low- or no-asset consumer bankruptcy filings, experienced lawyers with well-trained clerical staffs and well-honed technology have already devised ways to provide good-quality, standardized legal services at reasonable prices. And they are tough competition for the newcomer whose most obvious assets are enthusiasm, a low hourly rate and the immediate availability to take the case. These days, you can't count on an abundance of low-hanging fruit to sustain a new practice. You have to be more creative.

The most successful self-employed lawyers are the ones who can recognize emerging problems that other lawyers aren't even aware of yet and...