Building a Business-Minded Law Firm with Matthew Moeller | First Flight #10

ALPS Director of Partnerships Rio Laine joins host Adriana Linares to learn how to build a profitable law practice and unpack why business training, specialization, and tail coverage matter for every new solo.

Transcript:

Adriana Linares:

Hello, welcome to New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I’m Adriana Linares, a legal technology trainer and consultant. I love helping lawyers in law firms use technology better. I want to thank our partners in developing the New Solo first flight series for solo attorneys presented by ALPS Insurance. They’re interested in helping solos and small firms get the best start to their practices. We’ve curated the best 12 episodes for new solos in partnership with Alps. Today we’re highlighting a portion of an episode with Matthew Moeller out of New Orleans. I hope the discussion gives you a few ideas about how you can create some partnerships while staying solo. Stay through to the end. When I sit down with Rio Laine from ALPS Insurance, we’ll get into the resources available to fill in lawyers’, business training gaps, and who to bring into your corner as a business owner, the cost of switching lanes in practice areas and how to break up with your old firm. So you literally cover your tail. Now, my interview with Matthew Moeller, about how he runs his law practice as a business. So you graduated from law school here in New Orleans and decided to stay?

Matthew Moeller:

I did, and it was right around the time of Katrina, so there was a lot of thought about leaving and what might be the job prospects for attorneys going forward in New Orleans. But I did decide to stay here with my girlfriend, who is now my wife, and we’re certainly glad we did because the legal market in New Orleans has flourished. I think since Katrina.

Adriana Linares:

I’ve always believed that the legal community here is so good. I mean, it’s tight, it’s local, but it’s big. It’s kind of weird. So yeah, I’m glad you stayed too. So you were with a larger law firm right out of law school.

Matthew Moeller:

I was with a large law firm right out of law school doing some document review and helping them with a large pharmaceutical docket that they had at the time. I did that for about a year and I went to another law firm, which was more of a boutique law firm focusing on insurance defense and general civil litigation. I then went to a much smaller firm to work on some vessel construction cases as well as some trucking defense cases before deciding to finally start my own firm in the summer of 2013

Adriana Linares:

Vessel construction. So one of the things that I love about New Orleans is the weird types of law that you practice here. So there’s a lot of maritime disaster law, there’s tobacco, oil, gas. It’s really an interesting market. So it sounds like you got a lot of different experiences working with firms.

Matthew Moeller:

I did. And the range of experiences that I had in somewhat of a relatively short period of time is kind of what ultimately gave me the foundation and the confidence to start my own firm and be able to have a specialized yet diverse practice in terms of the different kind of cases that we handle.

Adriana Linares:

And what are those and what is that?

Matthew Moeller:

Well, I am primarily a commercial construction and maritime litigator. However, we also do contract preparation for clients. We consult with clients regarding their general strategic objectives and issues that they may have in their business. And so we have the three kind of large buckets, but we’re also able to handle other discreet issues that may come up that relate to those three practice areas.

Adriana Linares:

That’s very cool. So you said 2013 is when you decided to go out on your own.

Matthew Moeller:

It is.

Adriana Linares:

And you’re a young guy, right? It you’re a young guy. So about how old were you?

Matthew Moeller:

I,

Adriana Linares:

I think we were probably about the same age.

Matthew Moeller:

36 at the time.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. Okay. Actually, I’m a couple of years older, but that’s cool. But no. All right. So you’re 36 years old and you’ve probably been talking about it with your wife. I’m thinking about going on on my own. Was she supportive and great, and was that an important part of it or was she like, no, let’s keep that cushy job. We got two babies now.

Matthew Moeller:

I think we were both cautiously optimistic.

Adriana Linares:

That’s good.

Matthew Moeller:

Would be the best way to put it. She was very supportive in doing it, but certainly there’s a little bit of trepidation and intimidation, honestly, when you decide to kind of take that step and go out on your own.

Adriana Linares:

So you finally decided to pull the trigger?

Matthew Moeller:

I did.

Adriana Linares:

And did you work from your home?

Matthew Moeller:

I worked out of my house for two weeks, which was good and bad before settling on a shared office space downtown to really kind of help with the transition of getting the operation up and running, getting the systems in place, seeing how things were going to work out. The shared space was great because it was a month to month deal and I had the ability to move and go somewhere else if I needed to or I could stay as long as I wanted to. So that kind of situation was ideal for me and just seeing how things were going to shake out initially.

Adriana Linares:

I do want to go back and ask you about what your book looked like when you decided to do that and how you got clients, but I think people are always interested in learning more about a shared office space. So I’ll ask you a few more questions there. So I’ve been to your office several times before you moved to this one, which obviously we’ll get to too. But that was cool because it was in a major building downtown in the central business district of New Orleans, and you had a receptionist there. You had all the creature comforts of a big firm with a good address. Tell everyone a little bit about the resources that you had, what the cost may have been like maybe any downsides that you faced in having that shared office space. Were they all lawyers in there?

Matthew Moeller:

Not all, but a good many number of lawyers were on that floor and in the shared space, yes.

Adriana Linares:

And was there any sort of comradery? Were you able to either refer each other business? Because a lot of people say, oh, I hate to be out of my own and in my home because I wouldn’t be near other lawyers and I want part of that community. So what was it like in there as far as

Matthew Moeller:

Just a little bit of camaraderie in terms of they understood the profession and everything, not so much a lot of referral opportunity, but a lot of curiosity I think amongst the handful of us that were working out of that address about exactly what are you doing, what’s your practice, who are your clients, those kind of conversations.

Adriana Linares:

And then as far as the logistics of the office space itself, I think I remember that there was a receptionist and the services that you paid for were a conference room internet. What was the deal as far as the shared office space?

Matthew Moeller:

The actual setup I thought was quite good, particularly for one person. There is a receptionist, there is someone that gets and sorts your mail. You have access to a kitchen, which is nice. You have access to the conference room if you need it. Everything is there to really support small businesses in trying to make growth attainable for them. The downside, I think, would be putting a lot of people in there in a lot of different offices is not necessarily cost effective because you are paying by head for things like telephone, internet and some of those services. But for one person, and for me when I was just starting out, it couldn’t have worked out any better.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, that’s very good. And so when you were just starting out and those two weeks that you were at home and then transitioned to the office space, did you have clients? Where’d you get clients from?

Matthew Moeller:

I had a few core clients that were with me when I started my own firm. And fortunately those clients were very, very busy at that time, even though I didn’t have a lot of ’em, they had a lot going on. And so that was a really good segue from a cashflow standpoint into getting the operation up off the ground, being profitable from day one,

Adriana Linares:

Lucky

Matthew Moeller:

Having some resources to deploy for technology and further business development and things like that. And so we’ve just been fortunate enough since then to be able to keep it going in a very positive direction.

Adriana Linares:

So did you say to all your clients or key clients, Hey, by the way, I’m going out on my own. Do you want to come with me? Or did you tell your firm that you were working for, look, I’m going out on my own. How do we break up these clients? How did you work that out as far as going out on your own and already having clients?

Matthew Moeller:

It was very civil when I left. I mean, there were certain clients that I think it was understood were clients that were mine and then there were clients that certainly I worked on, but were firm clients that stayed. And so it was a very clean.

Adriana Linares:

That’s good. I always hear that. It seems like everyone that I interview who has to make that break, it’s always pretty natural and clean and relationships are maintained very well. And I think that’s great.

Matthew Moeller:

Things are usually pretty clear I think in that kind of attorney-client situation and which clients really the lawyer should be able to take with them. And then which clients really are better suited to stay at the previous firm. That’s usually a pretty clear scenario.

Adriana Linares:

And then as you sort of, let’s go back a couple years before you decided to go on your own, you had mentioned to me earlier that you didn’t necessarily love sometimes the technology or the processes that you were confined to in someone else’s law firm. So what types of things were those that you realized maybe weren’t for you, weren’t efficient? Maybe you looked around and went, oh my God, I can’t believe we do things like this. Is there anything like that that helped you go out on your own?

Matthew Moeller:

Well, I think the big thing was just trying to move away from the bundles and bundles of paper. And I’m not saying that you should be a hundred percent paperless. I mean, it’s still, today I often print things out to look at, I have smaller books that maybe do not have material that’s easy to navigate online on a bookshelf that I can just grab. But the days of the big file cabinets in the back of the office and the unlimited number of red wells falling out everywhere, that was something when I went out on my own that I certainly envisioned was not going to be a part of how we do things. And I think in moving away from that, you’re able to better control your operating costs. You’re able to keep overhead to a lower level, and ultimately I think you’re able to deliver more value to the client in running a much more streamlined process.

Adriana Linares:

Where did you pick up such fancy business terms like operating cost and bottom line?

Matthew Moeller:

Too much reading.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, okay. No, that’s good. That’s what many lawyers say. I don’t know anything about the business of law and especially when you’ve been stuck in another law firm and there’s office administration that runs that sort of stuff. So part of going on in your own is obviously figuring out that, holy crap, I’m going to run a small business. I’m going to be a business owner, but I don’t have the business skills. They didn’t teach me that in law school. So you did a lot of reading.

Matthew Moeller:

Well, a lot of reading. And also it really goes back to my high school job. I mean was That’s awesome. High school was good for something. I was a stock boy at probably one of the better known clothing stores in Jackson,

Adriana Linares:

Mississippi, in Jackson, in

Matthew Moeller:

Jackson, Mississippi. I worked after school and in the summers it was a small business, it was a sole proprietorship. It would run by a guy that was very much behind the scenes, an owner that did all the dirty work himself while all the other people were out selling the product on the floor. And I really gained an appreciation at a very young age about running a business and really how much hard work it is and what you have to do

Adriana Linares:

That’s

Matthew Moeller:

Interesting to successfully run a business. And then before I went to law school, I was actually a political consultant in Washington DC and was part of a group that actually left another group. And so I learned from the president there firsthand and watched him run our operation and really learned some very, very valuable skills about running a business and ultimately achieving a profitable bottom line.

Adriana Linares:

So do you think you’re a small business owner that happens to be a lawyer, or are you a lawyer that runs a small business?

Matthew Moeller:

The latter for sure.

Adriana Linares:

We’ve been talking so far about his experience as a young AttorneySync, other law firms deciding to break out on his own. You were in a shared office space for what, two years? Three years?

Matthew Moeller:

Two years.

Adriana Linares:

Two years. And then not that long ago you called me and said, Hey, I moved. I’ve got my own office space. I walked in here yesterday. I was like, wow, these are some nice digs. You’re in a great building in New Orleans. At what point did you start to think about when you were in that shared space and you were a true solo that, Hey, it’s time I can probably get out there and have my own space. And how did you find the space and tell us a little bit about making that big move.

Matthew Moeller:

Well, it was just a focus on now was the time to start adding people and more of a long-term growth plan. And like I said, it was not those

Adriana Linares:

Big fancy business words again.

Matthew Moeller:

Yeah, exactly. It was not cost effective to do that in the shared space as much as I liked the shared space. So I had a friend, a commercial real estate Embroker in town. I had him start looking at some different buildings and the occupancy rates downtown are pretty solid. I mean, we had some things to look at, some that I thought were probably a little bit too much, too big, and too soon we had others that weren’t quite big enough. And maybe I wasn’t crazy about the location, but we got here to six 50 pores, which is a great building

On the right side of BOS for me because I don’t like fighting traffic. And of course backs up to Lafayette Square, which is kind of a great setup. And we found a suite that needed some work, but the landlord was nice enough to work with us on a little bit of a build out. And yeah, I mean I was looking for obviously an office for myself, a couple of other extra offices to grow a little reception area and at least one conference room. And so the setup that we have now I think serves all those purposes.

Adriana Linares:

Was the furniture here, did you have to buy all this furniture?

Matthew Moeller:

We bought all this furniture. Okay,

Adriana Linares:

So you had to spend a little

Matthew Moeller:

Bit. We spend a little bit. We’re adding as we go. As you can see, we probably have longer to go than we’ve added. Looks

Adriana Linares:

Great. I mean wonderful space in a great part of town. So you added a paralegal?

Matthew Moeller:

I did. All

Adriana Linares:

Right. So you went on own had, if I remember right, contract paralegals that when you were in the shared space, I think you had a contract like a part, or maybe it was a law student?

Matthew Moeller:

Yes, I had a LawClerk. I did.

Adriana Linares:

Alright, so over there you were seriously a true solo?

Matthew Moeller:

That’s correct.

Adriana Linares:

Who does your receptionist?

Matthew Moeller:

Well, we have an automated system where, and the voice is Caroline’s. It’s not going to be my voice on the automated system where certainly she has a greeting and then someone can simply select an extension for her or an extension for me.

Adriana Linares:

All right. So you said you got on your own, you get the space, you hire someone in Caroline that you just mentioned is your paralegal?

Matthew Moeller:

Correct.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, so you’ve got a full-time paralegal in here.

Matthew Moeller:

Correct.

Adriana Linares:

So that was a big move. Did you go through the whole how do I hire my first employee reading?

Matthew Moeller:

Not so much reading. I had toyed with the idea of hiring a paralegal before Caroline came on board. And I had known some people that had some good connections into, I think it was the LSU paralegal school, as well as some other groups that are always looking to place paralegals, got some resumes and liked Caroline’s, and I think we had one or two meetings and that was it. And she’s been here right about a year, probably about 13 or 14 months now.

Adriana Linares:

Awesome. No, she’s very sweet. Tell us a little bit about the technology that you and Caroline use. So I think, and remind me too, when you were picking your practice management program, didn’t you go through trials of all of them?

Matthew Moeller:

I went through a lot of trials and the main thing I did was I went to the A tech show.

Adriana Linares:

Oh yes, my

Matthew Moeller:

Baby. For the purpose of really deciding, okay, what technological platforms are we going to use to run the show?

Adriana Linares:

I think that’s really important because most attorneys literally would not even think to take two or three days out of the office to go to a conference. That’s cool. Bet. I bet Ernie helped you encourage you to do that. Right. So Ernie, the attorney, Ernest Benson’s, a friend of everyone, and he’s here in New Orleans and has long been a blogger and he was with a big firm and he went out on his own and now he’s a consultant, sort of like I am helping lawyers with technology. So Ernie said, go to tech show. And then

Matthew Moeller:

Yeah, no, Ernie very much encouraged me to go. I went. I thought it was great. It’s certainly not something we would go to every year, but I think it’s certainly something I’d be interested in going to about every five years when there are big sea changes in technology. But I mean it’s

Adriana Linares:

Going to be shorter now. I think we used to be able to say in legal every five years they’ll do. And now I really think it’s probably more like every two or three. Alright, so you tried a bunch of things and you landed on CosmoLex?

Matthew Moeller:

I did.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. And so that’s what you use for your practice management and your accounting and you like it and it’s good, and you trained Caroline on how to use it. And then you also have net documents,

Matthew Moeller:

Huge fan of net documents.

Adriana Linares:

Good. Me too.

Matthew Moeller:

And in fact, every day I feel like every day I log onto net documents, they’ve got a new ad about a top 100 law firm in the US changing to net documents. So they really seem to have a lot of momentum. And it’s probably only a matter of time before most firms are using net documents or something very similar.

Adriana Linares:

But what’s important about that is, so it’s a web-based document management system. If listeners haven’t heard of it, it’s absolutely one of my favorite. I mean, Alan, my partner, I rarely work with firms who we aren’t putting net documents into because it’s a sophisticated document management solution built for law firms. But what’s so cool about it is that it’s so scalable. So you’re a solo one now, you’re two, you’re going to add a third I think later, and you’re using the exact same platform as some of the largest law firms in this country and actually in the world. And that’s so cool. So it’s a very scalable and affordable product, and you’re a big fan of it because it makes your life so much easier.

Matthew Moeller:

It does.

Adriana Linares:

I know. I love it too. It

Matthew Moeller:

Does.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, other, so also you’re both PCs, what other cool technology tools or suggestions would you have to someone going out on their own to make sure they use or think about anything else? You’re a big fan of? You’re an iPhone user,

Matthew Moeller:

IPhone user, and I just think that, I mean, I’ve learned a lot of it from you because I know you’re the Outlook expert,

Adriana Linares:

Love outlook.

Matthew Moeller:

I think Outlook is very, very undervalued as also as almost a practice management type solution for smaller groups. I mean, there’s just so much you can do with Outlook in terms of assigning tasks to people collaborating on calendars.

Adriana Linares:

Right. So you’re an Office 365 subscriber.

Matthew Moeller:

That’s correct.

Adriana Linares:

Which is important. It’s only what, $12 a month for user? I think

Matthew Moeller:

That’s right.

Adriana Linares:

And yesterday we set it up so that Caroline, well, she already had access, but we made some tweaks so that she could see your calendar. You guys had a shared contacts, which is really important. And before these cloud-based subscriptions, I would’ve had to say to you, well, to make it easy 10 years ago, I would’ve said, oh, we’re going to have to put a server in here. We’re going to have to put exchange on here. It’s going to cost thousands of dollars. And now for $25 a month, again, you have the same platform that the biggest law firms that you’re either competing against or working with or using at really an incredibly reasonable cost.

Matthew Moeller:

And it’s interesting that you bring up the server because going back into thinking, what I didn’t want when I started my own firm was I did not want the closet with the server

Adriana Linares:

In the kitchen with

Matthew Moeller:

2000 cords and somebody back there in the middle of the night with a flashlight going through 300 different cords to figure out why our internet didn’t work. That also was something that absolutely was just not going to be part of the way we did things initially. Now there may come a time depending upon circumstances and different things where we may have to have a server

Adriana Linares:

Over my dead body,

Matthew Moeller:

Matthew Waller. I don’t see that

Adriana Linares:

Over my dead consulting body.

Matthew Moeller:

I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

Adriana Linares:

Do you think that having been around and witnessed what Katrina did to law firms was a part of that, or it was just a natural thing for you to realize technology’s really efficient and I can do this without all that stuff?

Matthew Moeller:

I think it was a little bit of both, but I think the key with technology is it’s enabled smaller firms and smaller outfits to deliver a lot of the same services in the same amount of time as bigger outfits. So it’s really been a game changer, I think from a capability standpoint where there’s not as much natural manpower needed now to deliver the same thing.

Adriana Linares:

I totally agree with you, and I’m very grateful that I have been around during this weird transition time and been watching it from the beginning. I started my career at one of Florida’s largest law firms, and it’s just so funny to think back. And they’re probably still doing, oh, actually no, they’re a NetDocs firm now. I was just going to say they’re probably still doing the same things, but that big firm also went, so anyway. Well that’s cool. Any other technology you want to mention? Let’s talk about business development. What do you do as a small solo who has a kind of cool niche practice but can kind of step outside of it for business development? And what have you learned in doing that?

Matthew Moeller:

Well, I mean I think it’s kind of three faceted. We want to have an online presence. I mean, we want to have a nice looking website that’s easy for people to navigate that provides just quick information. Hey, who we are, what do we do? What can we do for you? Why should you consider us? We want to have that at its essence. But I still think that, particularly from my practice, I can’t overly rely on an online presence. I’m still a big believer that at the end of the day, there’s no real substitute for face-to-face contacts. So we like to get out there, we like to try to raise visibility a little bit, and then hopefully as we meet people in addition to Google, just maybe picking up a natural search for someone, looking for a commercial

Adriana Linares:

Vessel construction,

Matthew Moeller:

Commercial construction, maritime litigator, then maybe we meet someone in the marketplace and that drives them to go to the website and check it out and read up a little more about us. So I think it’s online presence, face-to-face contact. I’ve obviously been real active in the A, BA. I think some kind of organizational involvement is important, even if the clients don’t come tumbling in immediately. Just to raise visibility so that people know who you are. And particularly in an organization like the A, BA, where there’s a national reach that you can be on someone’s mind and in the event there’s a need for legal assistance in the New Orleans area.

Adriana Linares:

So when you say getting out there, let’s talk about locally first. Do you go to charity events, networking events? Is there, what kind of advice would you give to a New Solo and say, look, do you get an event, right, and look for things. I mean, you’ve been around here a long time, so basically you probably get invited to a lot of events, but how do you find the right type of, and where do you send Caroline or how do you say, okay, well we should go to that good networking. Do you pick?

Matthew Moeller:

Well, I think you got to find things that you’re interested in and things that fit your practice area so that when you’re communicating with people there,

Adriana Linares:

You don’t stick out Loper.

Matthew Moeller:

You’re somewhat of, I guess allegedly a thought leader or someone that can at least get to speak the language, so to speak. I think you got to find things you’re interested in. I probably have been under involved in local bar association and state bar association activities at the expense of more national things just because that’s kind of where I landed first. And it’s if you land somewhere and you have opportunities, it becomes more natural to stay there and move up a little bit than to just drop that and go somewhere else. However, we are going to have another lawyer coming on in the fall.

Adriana Linares:

Congratulations. That’s awesome.

Matthew Moeller:

We’re very excited. We think he’s going to be great. I think one of the things he also is very interested in getting involved in some organizations. I think one of the things we’re going to do is maybe focus more through him on getting involved at a real local level.

Adriana Linares:

Good.

Matthew Moeller:

I mean, it’ll be easier for him because he is going to be right out of law school and it’ll just be, I think, a good fit for us so that we can kind of cover both a national and a local organizational involvement strategy.

Adriana Linares:

Was he your LawClerk?

Matthew Moeller:

He is my LawClerk now.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, good. So that’s how you found him.

Matthew Moeller:

I did. He’s a third year at Tulane and we will be graduating this spring and then taking theBar.

Adriana Linares:

Awesome. If you had two or three things to say to a New Solo like Matthew Moeller of 2012 who’s just about thinking about going on his own, what would those things be?

Matthew Moeller:

I think you got to trust your instincts. I mean, when I decided to do it, it wasn’t really even a close call in my mind. Everything that I thought about told me to do it. So I think it’s important to trust your instincts. I think it’s important to know that you have to be, I think is Ann Gwen, one of the practice management consultants that I’ve read, I think her book, I think she says, you’ve got to be the technician and you’ve got to be the business person. And I think a lot of people are really good at being the technician doing the legal work, but have no real interest in running the business, looking at financial statements at the end of the month,

Adriana Linares:

Understanding them,

Matthew Moeller:

Where are we spending money? Why could we spend it better here or there? So I think it’s those two things to trust your instincts and to realize that as a true solo first starting out, you are wearing a lot of hats and it’s a very multifaceted job.

Adriana Linares:

You really have to be an entrepreneur. I mean, you have to be a business person and you’ve got to,

Matthew Moeller:

You do. And the whole reason behind being an entrepreneur is just the idea that you want to do something differently and you think you can be successful doing it differently

Adriana Linares:

And you’ve done it.

Matthew Moeller:

We’ll see, we got to knock on wood, baby. Keep it going.

Adriana Linares:

Exactly. Well, it was fun to hear Matthew Moeller again. He’s a good friend of mine. We both live in New Orleans and I actually run into him on a pretty frequent basis. I hope you picked up some ideas about how you might structure your firm to make the most out of the business part of being a lawyer. This episode is part of the New Solo first flight series presented by Alps Insurance, and today I’m joined by Rio Laine, director of strategic partnerships at Alps, and we’re going to talk about Matthew Moler. Hey Rio.

Rio Laine:

Hey Adriana. Thanks for having me back.

Adriana Linares:

I’m glad you’re here. So one of the things that I like about attorneys like Matthew is that they really consider themselves business people who happen to run a law firm versus a lawyer who happens to own a business. And I constantly have to remind and reminding attorneys that they are business owners, but as we both know, it seems that a lot of times they didn’t get business training. So how does this affect the way we run our practices?

Rio Laine:

I don’t know. My heart kind of goes out to a lot of legal professionals because if they don’t get the training they need typically to run a business. And so thinking about their law firm as a business is kind of a difficult transition. I think the hard truth is that most law firm owners, solo small firm owners, they learn by trial and error, which is really unfortunate. They’re not trained in business in law school. They are trained in the law. And personally, I think that that does them of significant disservice because something like 80% of lawyers will go on to own a law firm at some point, and law schools really could be stepping it up offering business classes and helping them think that way. But so many solos struggle with things like pricing, cashflow, billing, marketing, all those important pieces of running an actual business because there’s a major disconnect with what they’re taught in school and what they actually have to navigate in the real world. And I mean, you work with a lot of law firms, I’m sure you see that a lot.

Adriana Linares:

I do. But I also know that there’s a lot of great resources for attorneys that are trying to sort of get the leg up. I know that local bar associations, whether it’s your state bar or your voluntary bar, offer a lot of CLEs. They have a lot of toolkits, they’ve got a lot of training. So I always say, okay, here are the partners that you need. You have to have a bookkeeper. Even if you’re a solo, I don’t care. It’s not going to cost you that much, get one, then you’ve got to have a CPA. Now, your CPA might also have the bookkeeper, but sometimes they’re too separate and apart. Companies and people. I always talk about your practice management advisor if you are in a state that has one. So I’m the practice management advisor for Nebraska. Any member sustaining member of the Nebraska Bar Association can make an appointment to meet with me and I’m going to help them. There are a lot of them and also take on business coaches. So I’m wondering now if I should also start recommending that they add their insurer as another partner. Where could I call ALPS and say, okay, I’m starting my law practice and what are the strategic parts of my business that you would, or not you necessarily rue, but Alps would guide me through or help me with and is that a thing? Can I get a consult with an

Rio Laine:

Insurer? Yeah. So I mean, considering your insurer a business partner is an excellent strategy. And any reputable malpractice insurer will be committed to your success because that ultimately is their success as well. And so calling up, say Mark, for example, can call him up and say, Hey, I want to talk about X, Y, Z with my business. Can you give me information? And he’ll say, yeah, absolutely. And if he can’t, he will direct you to a resource that can support you in that. Because I mean, yeah, the more people that you have in your corner backing you up, and the more of those resources you can take advantage of, absolutely the better.

Adriana Linares:

I agree with you, and I think this is totally going to be one of the other helping hands that I put now a bulleted point on my PowerPoint presentations about this. Yeah, awesome. Seems really important and helpful. Yeah. Let’s pivot for just a second on another topic that Matthew talked about, which is his specialization. And I’ve learned a lot of things from you Rio in doing these talks. And one of the things that I learned that was just so obvious, but I’d never thought about in my 27 years of helping lawyers with their practice is that malpractice insurance carriers love specialization. So you don’t want an attorney, well, I mean you’ll take an attorney, but I’m

Rio Laine:

Saying, oh yeah,

Adriana Linares:

For you, the red flags go up when they practice door law, anything that walks in the door. And Matthew has very cool areas of practice. He does maritime trucking, defense. New Orleans is an interesting place to practice law. I think there’s a lot of oil and gas here, maritime. It’s interesting. Right? So tell us about why that’s helpful. I want you to talk about it from the carrier perspective and then I can talk about it more from the technical perspective for just a minute. But why is it important or helpful to specialize?

Rio Laine:

Well, from the carrier perspective, I mean, your likelihood of a claim increases significantly when you are constantly switching lanes. So

Think about from your own personal perspective, when you have 10 tasks you have to do and you’re switching and you’re switching, you’re likely not going to be able to do each one of them really, really well. Maybe you can do them all fine, but so switching back and forth between different areas of practice is difficult because you have to keep track of all of the different things that you’re trying to follow, all of the different statutes, the different laws, but also it’s kind of like, what is that saying? It’s like a jack of all trades, master of none. Yeah, totally. So specializing from our perspective, there’s way less chance of having a claim because it typically means that you have a very deep understanding of the law that you’re practicing. You’re not likely to miss deadlines. You understand those deadlines, you understand the different things that impact, and your clients will likely be happier with the result of their case because you have specialized and built that deep understanding. And I mean, that’s not saying that you should never branch out into other areas of law, but specializing is definitely from our perspective, way less risk than someone who’s doing a little bit of everything.

Adriana Linares:

And from a technology and sort of systems and processes perspective, it’s a lot easier to have two or three sets of workflows, task lists and processes over having 10. So let’s say you only did maritime and trucking defense, so you really only have to come up with two ways to run an intake or two processes. It just seems so much easier than being all over the place. Well, I think that’s really encouraging. And it also seems like if you’re practicing in an area that you’re passionate about and you really like, you’re also going to make less mistakes. And I think that’s another thing that I often recommend, especially when I talk to law schools. I have a couple of law schools that every year ask me to come on and do a, here’s what’s going to happen when you come out of law school if you want to be a solo practitioner.

And I tell them all the time, I’m like, find something that you love practicing around. So we’ve interviewed on New Solo, the bike lawyer we’ve had, so he is a biker, and by that I mean a cyclist. And so he gets involved in cycling conferences or competitions and sponsors those and is part of the whole cycling community in his city, which makes it easier for him to get up every morning and go to work. He’s going to be working on matters and cases and issues that he’s passionate about. So I love the idea of encouraging attorneys to specialize.

Rio Laine:

You had another guest who specializes in elder law, but he kind of built out his practice more so as a support network for his clients. And I think that came from helping his own parents. Yeah, which is, yeah, I mean, I think so many lawyers, they’ll think that they have to chase this kind of flashy law or whatever’s going to bring the most money, et cetera, but it’s like find something you’re passionate about, you’ll care and you’ll be better at your job. And there’s so many different areas of law. It’s like a galaxy

Adriana Linares:

And you’ll serve your clients better for it.

Rio Laine:

Yeah,

Adriana Linares:

I think the way this happens sometimes Rio Attorneys going solo and picking an area of specialization is maybe there with a larger firm that’s multidisciplinary and they spend a little here, a little time there, a little time there, and they think, oh, well man, I’m super passionate about maritime. I want to start a maritime practice and they want to go solo. I think one of the things that we’ve never talked about on the show, and I would love to hear you tell us how to do this, is how does an attorney, you go to the firm and you go, listen, it’s been great. I’ve started my career here, but now I feel I want to go out on my own. I’m going to do maritime law and I’d like to take some clients with me and actually the firm I’m leaving is happy about it because they don’t do a lot of maritime practice. They don’t want to, and maybe they will become my number one referral source for my new practice. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Question is what is the best practices in giving clients the choice? I mean, do I text them? I’m like, Hey Bob, I’m starting my own firm, want to bring all your boats with me, or how do we actually do that?

Rio Laine:

Yeah, that’s a really, really good question. So obviously we know that communicating with your clients is very, very important. So a notifying them that you are leaving the firm and B, saying, for all of your X, Y, Z matters in maritime law matters. You can contact me at whatever your new contact is. And I would presumably you are tracking your client’s preferred communication methods. So you would know, are you sending them an email, is it a letter, is it a phone call? How do they want to be communicated to, but ensuring that they do have that information and that you work with the firm that you’re leaving, just say, what’s the best process for this and how can we shuffle these? Anyone over who is interested? But yeah, communicating, letting them know about the change and also letting them know how the change impacts them if they say, don’t want to come with you. So what will be next? If you want to stay with the larger firm, who do you reach out to, et cetera. Designating somebody to receive those clients and be their point of contact after you’ve left is really important.

Adriana Linares:

And then what should I consider in terms of the actual files? Like, okay, so Bob and his boats are coming with me. Give me

Rio Laine:

What Yes. Yeah, so obviously that exactly, making sure you know what file belongs to you and what stays with the firm. And I mean, depending on insurance coverage, thinking about tail coverage, they might want to keep some documentation from past files on hand.

Adriana Linares:

Excuse me, excuse me, miss, what is tail coverage?

Rio Laine:

What? Oh yes, yes. Tail coverage. So when you get insurance coverage, you have coverage with your firm. Okay. Once you start your new firm and have your new insurance that presumably you have gotten before your old policy expires, you are still covered for any claims that arise from your time at the previous law firm. So tail coverage is like, I buy my coverage for this year, but I am still covered for those past acts for previous years.

Adriana Linares:

Is there a risk of health insurance? Like a gap where

Rio Laine:

Yeah. Yes, yes. Do not let there be a gap. You will lose all of that tail coverage if you renew your policy even a day late, boom, all that coverage is gone. So that’s a really important thing to be aware of. Get on that right away.

Adriana Linares:

Excellent.

Rio Laine:

Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

Alright, well Rio, yet again, another super helpful educational and informative conversation. I thank you so much. Remind everyone where they can follow up with you and learn about getting coverage through Alps if they’re interested. Yeah,

Rio Laine:

Absolutely. And thank you for having me, Adriana. It’s always a pleasure. If you’d like to reach me, you can get ahold of me at R Lane, that’s LAIN e@alpsinsurance.com, Alps like the mountains. And if you’re just curious to learn about Alps in general, what we offer, the resources we have, you can visit alps

Adriana Linares:

Insurance.com. Thank you so much Rio, and thanks everyone for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of New Solo and we’ll see you next time.