Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas:

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1 Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas: Perspectives on Business Development Lindsey S. Mignano Smith Shapourian Mignano PC 201 Spear Street, Suite 1100 San Francisco, CA (415) Office (415) Fax (650) Mobile

2 Lindsey S. Mignano represents California start-ups and small businesses, providing a wide range of corporate and intellectual property services, including business formation, contract drafting and negotiations, loan financing, and commercial transactions. Prior to launching her firm, Lindsey practiced law in the San Francisco office of an international law firm. She is a proud graduate of Stanford University (2007), and University of California, Hastings College of the Law (2010). SuperLawyers awarded her a Rising Star in 2016 and Lindsey resides in San Francisco. She currently serves as a Barristers Litigation Section Vice-Chair, and a Barristers Solo & Small Firm Section Chair for the Bar Association of San Francisco. She also serves as the Secretary (Communications) for the Junior League of San Francisco.

3 Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas: Perspectives on Business Development Table of Contents I. Let s Be Real...5 II. Is It Worth It?...5 III. Build a Brand...5 IV. Do Your Due Diligence...5 V. Who s Going to Hire You Anyway?...6 VI. Getting Clients...6 VII. Be Lean...6 VIII. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda...7 IX. Tackling Age and Gender Issues...7 X. Checking My Privileges...7 XI. Final Thoughts...8 Endnote...8 Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas: Perspectives on Business... Mignano 3

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5 Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas: Perspectives on Business Development I. Let s Be Real Starting your own practice is daunting, challenging, and yet incredibly rewarding. My speaking engagement will focus on why and how I started my own law firm; the struggles and victories I encountered in my first year of practice; and the things I wish I did better if I was to do it all again. II. Is It Worth It? Starting your own practice may not be right for you if you: (1) love your current firm/boss; (2) make salary that meets your standards; (3) are amenable to inheriting your boss/firm s existing client list; and/or (4) hate networking and routinely meeting new people. However, starting your own practice might be worth considering if you: (1) want/need to make more money in the long term; (2) want to be your own boss and originate your own book of business; (3) are amenable to regularly socializing for a living; and/or (4) want/need to work remotely and/or on a flexible schedule. III. Build a Brand For six years before starting my own law firm, I expanded my network and built my personal brand in an effort to prepare myself for starting my own legal practice. Here are some tips: Join/procure leadership positions in: Your college and law school alumni associations; Local charity organizations; and Lawyer organizations. Publish legal articles that showcase your area of practice and expertise. Moderate/present at CLE panels. Attend award receptions to meet successful lawyers in your area. Monitor/regularly update your social media accounts, connect with your new contacts online, and post regularly increase your online presence. IV. Do Your Due Diligence Preparing to start your own law firm requires both diligence and vulnerability. Here are some tips: Read articles and books on sales, business management, lead generation, social media/online marketing, and small law firm management. Ask everyone in your existing network to refer you to any successful solo or small firm lawyers. Interview at least 10 solo and small law firm attorneys, and ask 5-7 targeted business and management questions of each. Research your competition. Figure out the scope of their services, and how and what they are charging for their services. Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas: Perspectives on Business... Mignano 5

6 Attend non-lawyer networking events to meet potential clients and non-lawyer referral sources such as business owners, CPAs, financial advisors, bankers, etc. Draft a business plan, partnership/shareholder agreement, task lists, incorporation/organization documents to be filed with the Secretary of State and county in which you work, etc. If you plan to enter an entirely new area of practice, ask your BigLaw friends who practice in that area whether they would be open to sharing information and/or templates with you. They will likely say yes, as you are not their competition. V. Who s Going to Hire You Anyway? Before settling on an area of practice, consider who would be your most likely clients. We learned that millenials often hire other millenials, and 67 percent of millenials want to be self-employed according to a recent Forbes article. 1 We noticed that all of the people in our inner circles were millennials working in or around the tech industry. We then chose our practice areas based on their anticipated legal needs. VI. Getting Clients In the Bay Area, there are a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. I met them, or the referral sources that introduced me to them, by attending at least 3 networking events per week and meeting at least 15 new people per week. Aside from networking, the other things you can do to generate referrals include: Guerilla social media marketing. 1 speaking engagement per month. Telling all of your existing friends exactly what you do, and asking them to refer you business. You d be surprised that many of your non-lawyer friends don t know what you do. Never eat/drink alone, unless you re at home. Every meal/drink outside of the house is a business generation opportunity and a business expense. VII. Be Lean Our biggest expense is our malpractice insurance. Everything else is pretty minimal if you use technology. Virtual Office Subscription. The benefit of working with millenials in tech is that many of them work virtually, and do not care if their lawyers do the same. Get a virtual office subscription, and use Google Hangout, Zoom, Skype, etc. to meet with clients. You can also take them out to coffee or lunch. Phones/Mail. Your virtual office should be able to forward your calls to your cell and your mail to your house. You can use Stamps.com to print out stamps for mail. Online Accounting/Bookkeeping. Consider Xero or Quickbooks and their online platforms, but hire a bookkeeper to classify expenses. Practice Management Software. We use Clio. Automatic s. We use Boomerang to generate automatic follow-up s, and Quickmail to draft a series of targeted automatic follow up s to prospective clients. 6 Young Lawyers June 2017

7 Quick Calendaring. Allow people to book meetings with you using software that syncs with your calendar, and automatically calendars meetings on your calendar and theirs. We use Calendy. VIII. Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda You may want to consider these things in the process of starting your own law firm. I didn t, and so I am including them here for your review. Save more money. In light of the expensive San Francisco environment, I should have saved at least 1-year s worth of living expenses before breaking off to start my own law firm. I only had about 6-month s worth of living expenses when I started out, and that was not enough. Hire a bookkeeper, accountant, and business coach from the get-go. Do not underprice yourself even if you think you need the money in the beginning months. Cheap prices beget cheap clients who may not value your services, time, and/or expertise. IX. Tackling Age and Gender Issues While our clients are our age, the professionals we network with in order to receive referrals are predominantly middle-aged and male. For those of you who are likewise in your early thirties, some older and/or more experienced professionals will vigorously vet you as to your experience and expertise, and inquire, sometimes shamelessly, as to how you run your law firm. Sometimes it will feel like they don t think you know what you are doing, or that they think you are too young to be doing what you re doing. For those of you who are women and/or minorities, be prepared to wrestle with some gender issues such as: Male clients or referral sources that treat you out to lunch/drinks/coffee, and/or buy you impromptu presents (i.e., flowers or candy). Male clients or referral sources who compliment your appearance, and tell you that you look exotic and/or inquire as to your ethnicity. Female clients or referral sources that are skeptical or disdainful if you have too many vanity pics on your online profiles, or in any way draw attention to your appearance in your marketing. Clients or referral sources that think it s cute that you started your own law firm. If you re married, they might think that your business is your side hobby, rather than a for-profit endeavor. X. Checking My Privileges While I am a woman and a minority, as an intersectional feminist, I am obligated to disclose the privileges that allowed me to start my own law firm: While I saved enough money for 6 months of living expenses from my last firm job, my family was able to support me when the savings were not enough. I was privileged to attend Stanford, and make friends with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and BigTech employees who have been instrumental to growing my business. Your Practice Will Be Bigger After Texas: Perspectives on Business... Mignano 7

8 I grew up in an entrepreneurial family that included me in social settings with our businesses employees from a very young age. My mother enrolled me in charm school and encouraged me to participate in a scholarship pageant. While this is antiquated in 2017, the training admittedly helped me to very feel confident and speak confidently in social and work settings. XI. Final Thoughts There s a lot that I didn t cover here. If you have any specific questions, please feel free to me. And, of course, we d greatly appreciate it if you like/follow us on social media. We are most active on Facebook and Instagram. Endnote 1 See see also 8 Young Lawyers June 2017