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May be a bad time, but if there is a bad recession many lawyers won't have the choice of working at another biglaw firm. I'm getting the administrative side of a solo practice set up right now: website, site content, logo, business cards, etc.

It won't be effective as long as the lockdown lasts but as soon as this is over I want to be ready to pounce.

Anyone else sick of working biglaw and considering something similar?

No one? No one? Bueller? What do you plan to do when your firm lays you off?

Anon cause I don’t need anyone at my firm seeing this. What practice and what year are you? I’m considering this but I’m in lit and a mid level. Would love to bounce and set up my own, but I don’t think in lit. Maybe something like trusts and estates, but I don’t know where to start with that.

Anonymous User wrote: .

I'm commercial lit midlevel in biglaw. There are a bunch of practice guides on my state's bar association website that I've been reading about solo practice areas. Trust and estates would be a good one I think. The thing I'm most concerned about is getting clients. But the freedom from biglaw is so enticing.

leavingfirm wrote:No one? No one? Bueller? What do you plan to do when your firm lays you off?

You have people an hour and a half before following up with this? Come on

I'm a mid-level trusts and estates associate at a biglaw firm. I wouldn't recommend going straight from being a litigation or corporate associate to trying to be a solo T&E lawyer. There are two big issues.

First, T&E (especially if you're dealing with wealthy people) is highly technical and takes a while to learn. You can't just hit the ground running. To be honest, it would be unethical to try.

Second, T&E lawyers need lots of clients -- it's a high-volume practice. It'll be very difficult to parachute in, as someone with no experience and no T&E connections, and find enough clients to survive.

You either need to lateral to a firm and do T&E for a few years before going solo or you should just be a solo litigator/corporate lawyer.

Anon so my current firm doesn't see this, but yes, I am a senior lit associate looking to start a solo practice. I'm working on the logistics already now. Anyone else in that position in NY to bounce ideas off of (corporate form, business plan)?

I would love to do this but I honestly feel like I don't have any legal skills that were transferable so I would be starting from scratch. Did 2.5 years in big law leveraged finance - so essentially nothing I did was really relevant to solo practice. What does a solo corporate lawyer even do? Set up corporations, vendor/customer agreements, NDAs?

Anonymous User wrote:I would love to do this but I honestly feel like I don't have any legal skills that were transferable so I would be starting from scratch. Did 2.5 years in big law leveraged finance - so essentially nothing I did was really relevant to solo practice. What does a solo corporate lawyer even do? Set up corporations, vendor/customer agreements, NDAs?

Solo corporate does lots of incorporations, lots of EC/VC work (venture financings, note financings), tech transactions, customer/vendor agreements, mediating disputes, fund formation, some m&a at which point they lead the deal but bring in contractors for diligence/ancillaries.

I'm a mid-level in a very niche area and know I am fully capable of handling most cases in my not-so-complicated niche.

My hours have been through the roof lately (courtesy of being thrown onto a toxic matter unrelated to my practice), so much to the point it's got me thinking about leaving just because hourly pay rate has been terrible. Going solo and charging $500/hr (less than the firm charged for my time as a first-year) has crossed my mind a few times. Just trying to figure out if I could land a good 20 hours of paying work a week!

Solo practitioners feel good with a "branded name" only. Going solo means that you need hardly market yourself or spend money on it.

As someone who hopes to do this as soon as possible after law school, (I was solo when building and then selling a financial services practice) I'd be curious to hear what everyone's plans are as far as delegation goes. Selling cases? Bringing on a 2nd chair for certain things? I'm in a state where pure referrals are possible even if the referring attorney does no additional work and doesn't remain on the case. I think if I used my marketing skills from my prior field, I could do a lot more volume at a lower payout and have a decent quality of life. Curious is this is in anyone's plan for being independent.