Top Tech Tools for Solo Attorneys

Episode Notes

Transcript

New Solo

Top Tech Tools for Solo Attorneys

06/20/2017

Laurence Colletti: Hello listeners. It’s Laurence Colletti, Executive Producer of Legal Talk Network. I want to tell you about one of our more hilarious, yet still very informative podcast called Thinking Like A Lawyer. Twice a month host Elie Mystal and Joe Patrice from Above the Law dive into what it’s like to see the world from a lawyer’s perspective, meaning they jabber on about politics, current events, this, that, and the other, sometimes with the guests and sometimes not.

But if you are looking for a filterless podcast, check it out, Thinking Like A Lawyer on our website at  HYPERLINK “http://www.legaltalknetwork.com” legaltalknetwork.com, in iTunes or on your favorite podcast platform. And now back to the show.

[Music]

Intro: So you are an attorney and you have decided to go out on your own, now what? You need to plan and you are not alone. Join expert host Adriana Linares and her distinguished guests on New Solo. Tune into the lively conversation as they share insights and information about how to successfully run your law firm, here on Legal Talk Network.

[Music]

Adriana Linares: Hello and welcome to another episode of New Solo on Legal Talk Network. I am Adriana Linares. I am your host. I am a legal technology trainer and consultant. I move about the country helping lawyers and law firms figure out how to use technology a little bit better.

Every once in a while I run across some cool lawyers that I think would make great guests on the show and that’s what we are going to do today. But before we get started and I introduce her, I want to make sure and thank our sponsors.

Thank you to PerfectIt. It’s a legal specific proofreading software that locates mistakes that neither spell check, nor the most eagle-eyed lawyer can find. Try PerfectIt for free at  HYPERLINK “http://www.intelligentediting.com” intelligentediting.com.

Answer 1 is a leading virtual receptionist and answering service provider for lawyers. You can find out more by giving them a call at 800-Answer 1 or online at  HYPERLINK “http://www.answer1.com” www.answer1.com.

I want to thank Clio, the world’s leading cloud-based legal practice management software. Thousands of lawyers and legal professionals trust Clio to help grow and simplify their practices. Learn more at  HYPERLINK “http://www.clio.com” clio.com.

Unbundled Attorney is a premium lead generation service that delivers exclusive leads directly into your Inbox in real-time. Looking to get more leads and grow your practice, be sure and visit  HYPERLINK “http://www.unbundledattorney.com” unbundledattorney.com today.

JoAnn, you there?

JoAnn Holmes: Yes, I am here.

Adriana Linares: Hi.

JoAnn Holmes: Hi. Thank you for having me Adriana. I am so excited.

Adriana Linares: I am excited to have you. So you are our guest and your name is JoAnn Holmes and we met because you sent me a really nice email, which I have in front of me that said — just want to say thanks for your podcast. It has been really helpful, and oh wait — we didn’t meet in person, did we?

JoAnn Holmes: I don’t think so.

Adriana Linares: Okay. No, no. Yeah, all right. So I have an email from you. It was super nice and we just — oh, I know what happened, I totally have it confused. You emailed me asking about DocuSign that I had mentioned on a podcast.

JoAnn Holmes: That’s right.

Adriana Linares: Yeah, so that’s what happened. So I mentioned that I get 10 free signs with DocuSign because of my Google Apps for Business Account and you wanted more information. So we sort of started a little email exchange and at some point you just sort of wrote, by the way, I am a lawyer that went solo and your podcast was helpful, then you sent me your bio, which we are going to talk about, and I said you should come on the show, because you sound inspirational. So here you are.

JoAnn Holmes: I was doing my best to try to sound like I was not as excited as I was when I got your email. So here I am. I am also trying my best to not sound excited as I am to get to talk to you.

Adriana Linares: No, I love it, definitely show your enthusiasm, but before I ask you to tell us a little bit about yourself, I am curious, did you actually figure out the DocuSign thing and did you get 10 free signs because of your Google Apps for Business Account?

JoAnn Holmes: No, and I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure it out and ultimately I went with SignNow after researching DocuSign and researching HelloSign and so forth and I considered some Adobe-focused options. I even got technical support from Google involved and it just didn’t work out and so I decided that it was a good idea to move forward, but thank you so much for taking the time to try to help me with it.

Adriana Linares: Oh, no problem. And I wonder if it’s because you are on a Mac, was that part of the problem or that didn’t come into the picture as an issue?

JoAnn Holmes: Possibly.

Adriana Linares: So what did you end up going with and do you like it and have you been using it?

(00:04:51)

JoAnn Holmes: I am using it all the time. I decided to go with SignNow, and what’s great is that I can send my clients a link that allows them to execute documents on their mobile device or from their browser on their computer, if that’s more convenient. I am always trying to think about, my client base is a really busy group of business owners and so to the extent that I can streamline things and make it more accessible to them, wherever they are, that’s the goal. So SignNow has worked out really well for that.

Adriana Linares: That’s awesome. Look, you just gave some lawyers out there some pretty cool advice and information that I guarantee you they didn’t have and they didn’t know. So congratulations.

JoAnn Holmes: Thank you. Let’s do more of that.

Adriana Linares: Let’s do more of that. Before I do ask you a little bit more about that stuff, tell us a little bit about your background, you were at a big firm, you have got a lot of years of experience.

JoAnn Holmes: Yeah. So I am a bona fide nerd, not just an Adriana Linares like fan girl. I went to undergrad at Stanford, so right in the heart of nerd nation, and then moved here to Atlanta to attend Emory School of Law. And it was a really interesting time because I graduated from law school in 1999 and I literally did not know what intellectual property was when I stepped on the campus to attend law school, and over the course of that time I really started to realize how important technology and IP were going to be. So I was really fortunate to start my career at a great full service firm, with stellar attorneys who gave me a great foundation as a baby lawyer.

And then I spent most of my career as in-house counsel at large international organizations on very diverse management teams that were sort of like a mini UN Council meeting every time we got together. It was fun. I was a Cultural Anthropology Major so I got to use that, and I got to serve on management teams and really learn the business side of being an attorney and how it was my responsibility together with the rest of the team to really hit our financial targets and the impact that had on the business at large.

So after having done that, I guess it was in 2015 that I made some decisions about the time that I wanted to be able to spend with my daughter before she leaves for college and just always have felt very strongly about doing service work as well, and the demands of the role that I was in, in my last in-house counsel job just — it was all-encompassing. And so I took the summer off and prayed a lot and talked to friends and family and decided to start my own practice, and I am genuinely the happiest I have ever been in my career now.

Adriana Linares: That is so great to hear. I absolutely love that. And remind me what part of the country you are in?

JoAnn Holmes: I am in Atlanta. So I am originally from the Midwest. I was raised in Miami, so I have lived in a few different places.

Adriana Linares: So you are in a pretty big and busy market, which is a funny thing when people decide to go out on their own, because you could say, well, it’s a big and busy market, that means there’s a lot of business, or that also means there’s a lot of competition. And then of course if you are in a rural area could go the other way, which is there’s not that much business or there’s not that much competition.

When you decided to go out on your own did you focus on a specific area or niche staying with what your experience has been and then tell us a little bit about what the competition, if any, has been like, or if you feel more like the competition that might be out there is actually good and has been inspirational and helpful.

JoAnn Holmes: I really try to be a pragmatist and so competition is reality and I think ultimately it’s good for us. I think the competition that we are facing now is very different than it was when I started my career, because there wasn’t LegalZoom and Avvo and all of those competitors. But I don’t cast aspersions on those companies because they serve a market that is not being served elsewhere.

Because I was so fortunate and quite frankly, possibly naive that I worked around really high caliber attorneys throughout my career, my perspective was always that I am going to serve clients at the level that I know how to serve clients and I am not going to fall beneath that. So whether I am working with small clients or even startups, folks who are quite frankly working a day job and they have got this dream of a business that they have wanted to start and I am supporting them, oftentimes a family or my client is a multi-billion dollar company, I support them the same way.

And part of what has been challenging for me to think through is what’s the right price point and how to offer clients different tiers of service. So I am meeting them where they are in the life of their business and in their budget, but also running my firm like a business and being fair and reasonable and responsible to my family in terms of the revenue that I generate from the work.

(00:10:03)

Adriana Linares: So earlier when we were doing just sort of some back end chit chat you mentioned that having had that experience and your work ethic is clearly very founded and you wanted to make sure to bring that into your solo practice, one of the things that you said to me that I want you to talk a little bit about too, which every new lawyer, or excuse me, new solo, not necessarily new lawyer kind of like you, it’s important that they hear these things.

You said I had been pretty immersed in businesses, but running my own business was a total — like a whole new world. So do you want to talk a little bit about what that experience was like and how you made yourself smarter, better, and maybe it’s not so scary anymore?

JoAnn Holmes: Yeah. Well, I am not going to say whether it’s scary or not, but I will say I improved my prayer life by plenty.

You asked me the question earlier about did I niche down, and I did. I am really fortunate to be able to do work that I find fundamentally interesting. And so I focus on commercial agreements. So essentially the way I explain that to clients is I do the types of contracts that they need with their customers and vendors to both protect and grow their business. And I point out the growth part, because I think that the perception of attorneys is, first of all, we are all litigators and I am not, and also you call a lawyer when something has gone wrong.

I am trying to educate folks on the front end. Let’s not just talk about protecting you against downside risk, but also where are their revenue opportunities, where is their money you are leaving on the table and how can we strategize about when you enter and exit a relationship so that you can revisit revenue opportunities at a time and in a way that’s comfortable for you with your customer. So that’s one side of it.

The other side of it is the intellectual property. So everything under the IP umbrella, absent patents, and I am fortunate because in my background coming into this I had managed trademarks in 130 countries around the world, and so I really had a perspective on working with creative professionals and trying to bring a project to fruition from ideation through working with the chemists on formulae, to developing labels and ads and social media campaigns and so forth. So I have really been able to bring that perspective into how I work with a broad panoply of clients from small to quite well-established international companies.

In terms of running a business myself, all of the things that I just spoke to have been helpful thinking through what types of relationships I want to have both with my clients and with my vendors.

I have a virtual team that’s great. I am like Beyoncé. I have an all-girl band, and so I am —

Adriana Linares: Awesome.

JoAnn Holmes: Yeah, it’s fun. And I am a mom and many of the people who I work with are also moms and so it’s nice to be in a position to support other women who are trying to find flexibility between doing good work and also managing family responsibilities.

But what do I think about being a business owner; I think one of the things that I have learned to do is be more strategic about where I dedicate my resources. So one of the things I did wrong quite frankly and it was a costly mistake was do general advertising, when in reality I should be advertising where people are looking for attorneys who do the work that I do.

So not realizing that early on, I made mistakes with my advertising dollars and I have gotten better with that. I also am over, so over that I can do this all by myself perspective. The first year I tried bringing people on here and there to help with things, and it was generally just frustrating, because I would ask them to do something I hadn’t thought through well enough myself. So I decided for the first year I would do everything by myself so that when I started bringing on a team I would know how to respect their time and ask them for what I actually need rather than expecting them to read my mind.

So just learning more about how to run the business and what are the best uses of resources and how to streamline things and how to listen to clients, so I understand where they are, and getting in front of where they are and saying, I know that you are going to have concerns around fees, so let me tell you how I structure my fees and let me tell you how the process is going to work for us to work together, what does the on-board look like and automating as much of that as possible and setting up systems, so I have someone to answer the phone and arrange calls for me and do that cost-effectively.

(00:15:04)

All of those logistics and support things, they took time and it took time for me to figure out what were the right resources, but I am so grateful I spent that time because now those things just work.

Adriana Linares: Well, I think that’s really important and I find that a lot of attorneys either never take the time to do it and then transition to developing systems and then hiring people to help them, or they just get stuck and don’t think about it and just continue to do it or try to do it on their own forever and that always never works out. I see attorneys that are constantly struggling and I say, well, get some help.

So anyway, before we move on to the next segment where I want to talk to you about your technology decisions and how you decided to set up your practice and all that, I want to make sure and take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsors. So we will be right back.

[Music]

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Adriana Linares: So we are back with JoAnn Holmes, and JoAnn is a very cool attorney in the Atlanta area that focuses on business contracts, trademark and tech. She was, as she told us in the previous segment, an attorney with bigger organizations for quite some time and then about a year or so ago JoAnn, I think you decided that’s when to go out on your own and you have been at it for a little over a year, right?

JoAnn Holmes: Yeah, it will be two years in September.

Adriana Linares: Two years, okay. So year-and-a-halfish and you told us a little bit about your business background and learning to respect and run the business. Tell us a little bit about how you decided to set up from a technology perspective and especially interesting I know is going to be to our listeners is your virtual assistants. Like you said, you kind of have this virtual all-girl band and it’s pretty awesome.

So let’s start with the basics of practice management, did you pick up a practice management program, did you have some preconceived notions based on your big firm experience of what your technology should look like. Where did you start?

JoAnn Holmes: I don’t have a practice management program and I spent time doing the introductory calls and the demos with — I know I did it with Clio and I probably did it with Rocket Matter as well. And I just wasn’t sure what I needed it for and ever so often I would revisit it and I think that all of the things that I would need it for I found other resources to fill those roles for me, so I don’t have one.

Adriana Linares: All right. Well, tell us about the other resources that fill the holes.

JoAnn Holmes: So I use G Suite, formerly Google Apps for Business. I have my own account and then my assistant has an account as well. We use, just generally amongst the team to communicate, we use Slack, which has been great and I am sure there are many facets of it that I still need to learn how to use that I am underutilizing, but that’s been super helpful.

I am learning and I from time to time use the Google materials, be they sheets or docs or what have you, and those are great because I can work with someone in real time.

For example, my trust accounting spreadsheet is a Google Doc that I share with my bookkeeper, so she can immediately access my QuickBooks Online as well as access that Google Doc and see how those things reconcile and get into my bank account records and make sure that everything is working the way it should work there.

I am a person who is all throughout the day prioritizing and reprioritizing as clients share their needs with me. So I use Todoist as my app. My standard is I have to be able to use my Mac, my iPhone or my iPad and get the same information everywhere.

Adriana Linares: Great standards.

(00:19:56)

JoAnn Holmes: So all the tools have to sync pretty much immediately in the cloud so I can work wherever I am.

And then my team and I — so my Marketing Manager and I and then separately my VA and I have notebooks on OneNote that we share information on together and then there are a number of tabs for different subject matter within those. So we communicate through that. So I think those are some of the core tools. I am a traditionalist and a little bit old school, in that I still use Microsoft Word.

Adriana Linares: And you should, it’s good, it’s the best.

JoAnn Holmes: Thank you. And I have obviously Gmail through the Google Apps for Business, but my interface that I actually use when I am sitting at my computer is Outlook.

Adriana Linares: Sure, on the Mac, and you are a Mac, right?

JoAnn Holmes: Yes, Outlook on Mac.

Adriana Linares: Let me just stop us right there for a second to recap a couple of things. So number one you are a Mac, you also have an iPad and an iPhone and everything synchronizes because you are using cloud-based and/or subscription-based services to help you do that.

You mentioned Todoist, so I just want to say in case someone hasn’t heard of that, that that’s a well-known and popular list making to-do list, checking things off organization tool. Is that free or is there a paid for it also, do you remember?

JoAnn Holmes: There is a free version; I think it’s less than $30 a year for the paid version, so it was very worth it.

Adriana Linares: Great. You then must have — do you pay for Outlook and Microsoft Word with an Office 365 subscription or did you just kind of buy it once and install it?

JoAnn Holmes: I had a version that was already —

Adriana Linares: Oh, yeah, came with your PC — I mean your Mac.

JoAnn Holmes: I am giggling a little bit Adriana, because before I started this firm I hated this Mac. I declared this is my child’s computer. I don’t understand that thing. I am not going to use it. And it’s interesting how one can change perspective when it’s the only computer available and you are starting a business. I already had a Legacy version, I think it was the 2011 version, but I recently did convert to the Office 365.

Adriana Linares: Excellent, because I was going to tell you, if you hadn’t to do that, because Office 365, which actually the last podcast we did, we interviewed Ben Schorr from Microsoft and talked about how it’s such a good and smart decision, because it’s minimal dollars a month and you get the full-blown versions of Office for the Mac or the PC. All right, so that’s good, so you have got a Mac, you have got the full Office on there. You have got your Google Apps for Business, email coming in and out through Outlook, but of course you can also always access your email on your iPad or your iPhone, probably using either the Mail App or some other app on there.

And then you also mentioned — oh, what was the last thing you mentioned?

JoAnn Holmes: Skype?

Adriana Linares: Skype, yes, not only we are recording this through Skype, but you use Skype —

JoAnn Holmes: And Slack, yes Skype and Slack.

Adriana Linares: Slack, that’s what it was. Great. Do you have a business phone number on Skype or some other source, or are you using your cellphone number for the most part?

JoAnn Holmes: Many, many years ago I set up a Google Voice account and so when I started the firm I just converted that to the phone number for the farm and so it rings to my cellphone. I can also send text messages through the iPhone and through the browser which is great.

And then I have my sort of not typical things that I use that I have found to be really helpful like —

Adriana Linares: Oh, I can’t wait to hear.

JoAnn Holmes: Typeform, and I don’t know if it’s Zapier or Zapier, I think it’s Zapier.

Adriana Linares: Right. Oh, this is very advanced JoAnn. Andrew Legrand would be very proud to hear about this thing. Tell the listeners who don’t know what Zapier is, what you use that for, because that’s pretty cool, you have figured out how to use Zapier and created your own recipes and how are you using it? What does it do and how are you using it, let me put it that way?

JoAnn Holmes: Sure. So my goal is to automate as much as can be automated.

Adriana Linares: Super cool.

JoAnn Holmes: Yes. And there’s a triumvirate of Zapier, Typeform and Calendly that allows me to do all of that. So when for example someone calls my virtual receptionist service, then they have the ability to set up meetings for me through Calendly, which connects to my Google Calendar and then say they want to set up a paid consultation, once they have the meeting set up, an email will automatically trigger out to them and the email will send them a link to my online client intake form, which is on Typeform.

(00:24:50)

So they will click that link. They will fill out all the information, and then through Zaps, which I have to give props to my virtual assistant who set up the recipes and so forth, through Zaps all the client intake information will be used to set up folders for that new client in my Google Drive, set up the new client information in QuickBooks, set up the client information on our spreadsheet that we use for conflicts check purposes, and also send me a note in Todoist to say a new client has been set up, finished their welcoming process.

Adriana Linares: Wow. That is amazing. Holy cow. That’s awesome. I absolutely love that you have such a big goal of automation, I just think that’s so key and important and what most learners don’t realize is it’s actually a lot easier than they think it is.

Let’s take another quick break. I want to make sure and respect and pay attention to our sponsors, which I am always very happy to have. So we are going to take a quick short break, listen to a couple of more commercials and we will be right back.

[Music]

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[Music]

Adriana Linares: All right, we are back and we are still talking to JoAnn Holmes. JoAnn, you were last talking to us about Zapier, which is an automation service that allows you to link information from one resource to another, like you said you have got a client form that a client fills out and then it triggers a bunch of other events that help you make sure you follow up with or at least get started on as far as a new client workflow goes.

You talked about Typeform, which must be the tool that you use for forms.

JoAnn Holmes: Yes.

Adriana Linares: Okay. We talked about Office 365 and G Suite and we have mentioned Slack twice, but we actually didn’t finish talking about it. So tell our listeners a little bit about what Slack is. Of course it’s sort of become one of those technology darlings where everybody has been using it out there in the techie world, but it’s always interesting to me when law firms are finding it useful. So tell us a little bit about how you all are using Slack.

JoAnn Holmes: Adriana, I will admit that there’s room for me to improve on this. So what I try to do is you Slack with my virtual team as our resource to kind of move things away from the body of emails, but I am not perfect at determining when should we communicate via Slack, when should we communicate via email, and when should we put something in our shared OneNote folders. So, usually Slack ends up being for quick things, quick question type communications.

Adriana Linares: Like a chat.

JoAnn Holmes: Yes, exactly. Email is what we use more often when we have things that we want to attach and when we are trying to keep track of notes that we are going to need to refer to repeatedly or in anticipation of a call, then we put those in Microsoft OneNote. So that’s the overarching goal, although some of those lines get blurred from time to time.

Adriana Linares: I could see that. So yeah, that’s interesting that dilemma you have about what goes where, when, when you have got sort of disparate systems and resources that are helping you run your business. It might really be sort of putting my consultant hat on as opposed to just my interview hat on, it’s really the big picture of why you might reconsider again a practice management program, because for me when I talk about practice management programs to lawyers, which I think everyone should have, the number one goal is putting everything in one place.

So in the old days it was easy to create a common pile because everybody would just contribute to one file, so there was a file and everybody was able to access it. And then now what happens with all this technology is we end up with information sort of all over the place and it becomes, although you are doing it well, so I am not by any means criticizing, I am just saying it’s kind of a point for practice management programs that allow you to put all of the communications and the notes and the calendar events and the files in one place as well as one of my favorite things, which I have a feeling this is what you would really like, because you mentioned several times that communicating with your clients is incredibly important, but it also sounds to me like you take communicating with your clients not only very seriously, but to a really personal and professional level.

(00:30:11)

And the secure client portals that a lot of them have, where your clients could log in and upload documents or download documents, or they could message you and communicate with you inside of a portal might be impetus enough for you to reconsider looking at those again and finding one that works for you. Because I bet you would love one of those practice management programs to death if you found one that was affordable for you and that you liked.

So anyway, I will take the consultant hat off and I am going to put the interviewer hat back on and ask you about any other great technology tips or tools that you would like to share with listeners or any advice that — as it’s been two years and you are obviously a successful solo that you wish you had been told early on would be great.

JoAnn Holmes: I think generally speaking we have covered some of those issues. The thing that I think overarching related to business is I read a great book called ‘The Confidence Code’ when I was making the decision to start the practice and I thought what makes me think I am qualified to go out on my own and run a firm, and that book was really great for me because it said — it was empirically based and there were lots of study references and so forth, but it said just get started and you will figure things out as you go.

And I am not a just get started person, I want to have things mapped out and have a contingency plan and so forth, but I really do think both in running my own firm and in advising clients who are taking that leap of faith, it really is a matter of iterating.

And so I have learned to be more comfortable and what I would say to others who are considering starting a practice is, it’s great if you have some foundation and my comfort is I know how to practice law. What I needed to learn how to do was run a business.

And there is so much outstanding free content, like your show, that I feel like I have gotten a free MBA between making decisions and just listening to people who are kind and generous enough to go on podcasts or write blogs and share their experiences that have helped me not have to take all of those knocks as I was figuring things out.

So I know it is an act of faith and an uncertainty to get started, but I am so glad I did it and I mean what I say when I say I am the happiest I have ever been in my career. This has just been great.

Adriana Linares: That makes me so happy to hear. You mentioned ‘The Confidence Code’ and I had to look it up real quick because I knew I had read it — well, I am not a reader, I am a listener, so I like to say I don’t read or write, I listen and talk, but ‘The Confidence Code’ is a book that I had also — I had listened to it, because I have an audible subscription and I love that book. It’s ‘The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance—What Women Should Know’. So I listened to it maybe a year or two ago and it was a great book. So I am glad you mentioned that one.

And I think it’s a funny thing too when you are knowledgeable about — when you are confidence in your knowledge about a topic. So one of the things I find myself talking to people a lot about is public speaking, because as we all know most people have a fear of public speaking, which by the way, total side note, I highly recommend Toastmasters. If you are afraid of public speaking, please find a local Toastmasters group, they are so great. That’s what I did when I first started my professional career.

But anyway, when people say to me how are you not nervous about going out to speak and sometimes I am speaking to maybe eight people or maybe there’s 800 in front of me, and I say, well, when you are confident in the knowledge and the topic, why would you be nervous, right? You have that and you have to feel good about it. And starting your own law practice is that same concept, if you are confident in your ability to practice law, then figuring out how to run the business that supports it, it’s not that hard, because you are right, there is so much great information and the legal community is such a giving community, it’s crazy town, so that’s always really good to hear.

Well, unfortunately, as it always happens we have sort of reached the end of our program because at some point we both have to stop talking. So I just want to make sure and ask you to remind everybody your name and where you are and how they can get a hold of you if they have any follow-up questions and I find all the time guests will email me later and say, hey, it was great being on your show. I have had several people email me or reach out. It’s really great to be able to give back and help. So any information you would like to share about yourself we would love to hear.

(00:35:01)

JoAnn Holmes: Sure. Thank you for that. So the website is  HYPERLINK “http://www.holmesatlaw.com” holmesatlaw.com and at the top of every page you can find my email address and my phone number. On Facebook and Twitter, I am also  HYPERLINK “mailto:HOLMES@LAW”HOLMES@LAW and on LinkedIn I am JoAnn Holmes.

You might hear people refer to me as Jo. I am usually only called JoAnn if I am in trouble. So hopefully every time I talk to you from now on it will be Jo.

Adriana Linares: I looked at your website earlier and I think it says about Jo and I meant to ask you should we call you Jo instead of JoAnn, that’s so funny, that’s really cute.

Well Jo, now we are friends.

JoAnn Holmes: Yes. We are friends now.

Adriana Linares: Yeah, we are gal pals and I get to say Jo, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing your experience with us. I know our listeners will absolutely appreciate it. And I really hope that you stay as happy and cheerful and sweet as you are right now forever.

Hey, aren’t you sending a child off to college?

JoAnn Holmes: Next year, yes.

Adriana Linares: Oh my gosh. Well, that’s quite a feat as well I say to all my friends who have managed to graduate kids and get them into college, that’s pretty amazing.

So you have been a great guest, I can’t thank you enough.

JoAnn Holmes: It was such a pleasure. I truly appreciate the education that I have received from your generosity and the podcast. So thank you for doing that.

Adriana Linares: You are very welcome. Of course I want to make sure and remind all of our listeners that if they like what they have heard, please remember just take a couple of minutes and give us a good rating on the Apple Podcast Store, we would really appreciate that. I would certainly appreciate it. That’s always very helpful and of course encouraging.

Please send us notes and emails if you have enjoyed the show and make sure you visit New Solo’s page on  HYPERLINK “http://www.legaltalknetwork.com/”legaltalknetwork.com. And if this is your first time listening, make sure you subscribe via your favorite podcasting app.

So that brings us to the end of our show. I am Adriana Linares. Thanks so much for listening. Make sure you go back and listen to old episodes if you haven’t listened to them and tune in next time for another great episode.

And remember, you are not alone, you are New Solo.

Outro: Thanks for listening to New Solo with host Adriana Linares. Tune in again to learn more about how to successfully run your new practice, solo, here on Legal Talk Network.

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The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders and subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.

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