How a New Solo Lawyer Built a Thriving Practice in Just 3 Months | First Flight #3

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer:

So if I was starting today as a New Solo, I would entrepreneurial aspect change the way they’re practicing leader. It Means to be. Make it easy to work with your clients, New approach, new tools, new mindset, New Solo, and it’s making that leap. Making that leap

Adriana Linares:

Hello and welcome to New Solo and Legal Talk Network. I’m Adriana Linares, a legal technology trainer and consultant. I help lawyers and 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 solo and small law firms get the best start to their practices. We curated the best 12 episodes for new solos in partnership with Alps. We’re highlighting a portion of this episode with Philip Mauriello. He was a brand New Solo when I talked to him. Philip set up his shop in a smart way and made a great checklist that is still relevant today. We hope hearing this again is a good reminder or if you didn’t catch it the first time, it will surely be helpful. Now stay through to the end. When I sit down with Rio Lane from Alps Insurance, Rihanna and I will get into the importance of planning ahead. Where to find the tools to reduce costs when starting your practice and why specializing like a snowflake can save you money and be a key to your law firm’s success. And now my interview with Philip Mauriello, who is entrepreneurial and quick to get his solo infrastructure in place. Hey Philip, thanks for coming in today.

Philip Mauriello:

No problem. Thank you for having me.

Adriana Linares:

You’re a member of the San Diego County Bar and you’re a new lawyer.

Philip Mauriello:

Yes,

Adriana Linares:

Brand spanking new.

Philip Mauriello:

Still got that new lawyer smell.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. How relieved were you three months ago when you heard that you passed theBar?

Philip Mauriello:

Well, this was a year and almost a year. 2018.

Adriana Linares:

2018 you passed the Bar.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

Then why did you tell me you been a New Solo for three months?

Philip Mauriello:

Because I worked at a firm after I passed theBar last year

Adriana Linares:

For

Philip Mauriello:

A little bit, but I went solo three months ago,

Adriana Linares:

But that’s still really fast to go solo. Fresh out of law. Yeah, basically fresh out of law school. Okay. So you went to law school here in San Diego, went to a firm, was it a big firm or a small firm?

Philip Mauriello:

It was a medium sized firm here in downtown.

Adriana Linares:

And had you always had the aspiration to go out on your own or did you decide, did you come out of law school, you’re like, I’m going to go work for a law firm forever, or did you say to yourself, I’m going to go work for a while at a law firm and then go out on my own? How’d it happen?

Philip Mauriello:

I had always had the vision to go out on my own before law school, me and my family, I worked in the restaurant business because I graduated college right around the 2008, so the economic downturn, and so there was no jobs out there for college grads and I sort of just stumbled into the restaurant base I was interested in it. Worked there for five years. Me and my family opened a restaurant for four years. So I think I got bit by the entrepreneur bug and really kind of being your own business owner and realizing that even though it’s stressful, it’s exciting having that freedom to kind of do what you want and be creative with how you build your business. So when I got to law school, I started to always think I want to continue my own business or be my own boss. And throughout law school I always planned and I was that nerd who would sit on demos and

Adriana Linares:

Excellent

Philip Mauriello:

Webinars about this program. Really? Yeah. I was that guy who would just sit there on webinars and learn about different legal tech and is this program better than this program? If I were to open my own firm, what would I use? So I sat on all the demos for Clio and Rocket Matter and Smokeball, what’s the other one? Practice Panther.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, my case, Zola. There’s so many of

Philip Mauriello:

’em, right? Yeah. I went through every single one of ’em, saw which one I liked, and when I got out, I went into working for a firm because I wasn’t quite ready for to go out solo, and this is sort of where freelancing comes in. I had been able to freelance on the side to save money as startup capital for my own firm. So

Adriana Linares:

I love that

Philip Mauriello:

After a while I was able to have enough to say, okay, I can do this and go out on my own.

Adriana Linares:

They didn’t encourage you to do this research and this sort of looking into practice management programs and technology and law school, did they?

Philip Mauriello:

No.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, rats. I was hoping you’d say yes, they did. That was part of my impetus. But it sounds like you just had it in you to get smart and start thinking about how to do that.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, I think once you start to get down the rabbit hole of legal technology, I mean there’s a lot out there and you can spend a lot of time figuring out which is best and which is sort of a waste of time or which is really efficient. So I think sort of how I started it was always, well, what practice management software would I like? And then you look at research tools and then you look at other tools like virtual receptionist. Okay, well if I were to start a small firm and I didn’t want to pay for a receptionist, who could you start? It becomes like a hobby of looking for what are the solutions to start a firm efficiently without spending way too much money, especially as a New Solo.

Adriana Linares:

And it’s so doable these days. I say it all the time on this podcast that 10 and 12 years ago I was having very different conversations with solos and it was always in the thousands of dollars. Now it’s barely in the couple hundreds. The reason you and I got to talking, other than the fact that we’re bar friends and I try to help you and you try to help me when I’ve got questions about what it’s like to be a New Solo, is that you had mentioned that you freelanced, which you referenced a moment ago, and you use LawClerk as a resource for freelancing. So you are the contracted attorney that someone might hire.

Philip Mauriello:

Yes.

Adriana Linares:

Before you tell me about LawClerk though on the side, you mentioned earlier that you are comfortable with the gig economy because during law school you also did freelance work, but through Upwork.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, Upwork was the main one. I would try to do as much contract work as possible. People always told me in law school I was sort of the hustler who was always trying to figure out how to make money.

Adriana Linares:

Good. Sounds like it worked.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, it worked. So I used Upwork, they were pretty good, but if you’ve been on Upwork, it’s all sorts of things and it’s sort of pick and choose. Hopefully there’s something on there that you could get in and I got some good projects off of it, but LawClerk has definitely been more consistent.

Adriana Linares:

Well now that you’re a licensed lawyer and you can actually do legal work as opposed to legal research and sort of paralegal like work through Upwork, you’re actually able to do legal

Philip Mauriello:

Work and LawClerk, I only started really getting into it maybe I think I started right after I passed theBar and I was doing freelancing right after I passed theBar. And it didn’t really pick up for a while, but I was doing it on my own as well. I had my own website and stuff like that. That was my business freelance attorney for hire. So then it became more, I get a lot of stuff through LawClerk now, which is nice because the way LawClerk is set up is they have to fund the project before you can start a project, which is a peace of mind. If you’re the contract attorney, You don’t have to worry about, I’ve had horror stories of when I didn’t use LawClerk and I went out on my own, you’d have to chase someone down for money and they give you an excuse after an excuse, then you’re just waiting on big invoices. But LawClerk makes it nice so you know that the money’s there, and as soon as the project’s over and it’s all complete, they’re going to disperse the money to you.

Adriana Linares:

That’s great. You obviously get to pick and choose the projects that you want.

Philip Mauriello:

Yes. Okay, great.

Adriana Linares:

What type of law are you practicing?

Philip Mauriello:

Mostly business and estate planning.

Adriana Linares:

Excellent. And then when you take, so you have your private practice too,

Philip Mauriello:

Correct.

Adriana Linares:

And burgeoning law practice that I know is going to be very successful. So you’ve got that and you’ve got LawClerk and you’ve got your website where you might still get some work from. Any other resources you want to make sure everyone else knows about or ideas for how to continue to grow your business and get experience and make money?

Philip Mauriello:

No, those are the two things. And I did freelance for a couple of reasons. One because I think it’s a good way if you’re a new attorney, to get experience

Under someone’s tutelage with low pressure. And I would say that’s one of the hardest things about when you go solo is all the pressure is on you to figure out how to do things. And when you do freelance, you have the comfort of knowing I’m doing a project for someone, they’re going to look it over and I can learn something as well. So I’ve had projects that I’ve taken on that I was just genuinely interested in the project or the question, and this was recent and I was talking to the attorney about it and I was like, yeah, I mean, it was just interesting to learn about this subject, low pressure. It’s not my client, but also if you’re a new attorney, it’s a great way to make some money on the side. And if you’re looking to start your own firm, it’s a great way to pay your bills in the sense so that your law firm isn’t so hamstrung for, oh, every dollar that comes in, I have to pay out to myself and salary, otherwise I can’t make rent this month. So that helps a lot as well. And it’s been a nice symbiotic relationship

Where the freelance frees up the law firm for other investments such as advertising, marketing or virtual receptionist or something that helps build your business.

Adriana Linares:

Pretty exciting for me to hear that you did all that research while you were still in law school. For me, a lot of lawyers, especially new lawyers, come to me once they’re done and got their license and then what should I do? Where should I hang my cloud hat, so to speak? So what did you end up picking and what’s your infrastructure look like? Because pretty tech savvy.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, that was one of my goals is definitely to make sure, and this is sort of a piece of advice for all solo firms is, and I think I read it from a book put out by Practice Panther, be ready for when the business starts to pick up because it’s hard to figure out what to do afterwards when you’re so busy with work

Adriana Linares:

So true.

Philip Mauriello:

It’s better to say, okay, well when this comes up and I have this many clients or this much business, what’s my next step? What’s the next thing I’m going to implement? I made sure I sort of had a list of different tech things I would go with. First off was obviously Smokeball. I looked at all of ’em and Smokeball for some reason just blew me away, especially as a solo small firm. Their document automation, the time tracking is great. I love the fact that whenever I open a document, it tracks the time whether I bill a client for that or not.

Adriana Linares:

You’re still tracking the time.

Philip Mauriello:

It’s just nice to know and you can at least see where your time is being spent on stuff. It’s also a nice benefit when they see all those emails that you could be billing. You write them off as a nice gratuity of, well, I don’t bill emails for you. And

Adriana Linares:

That’s cool.

Philip Mauriello:

They see the value in that.

Adriana Linares:

Alright, so you got a Surface Pro, which I also have and I absolutely love. So you like it then?

Philip Mauriello:

I love it. Yeah, it’s great. It’s the lightest laptop I’ve ever used.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, awesome.

Philip Mauriello:

It’s nice and portable to bring with you into court, into meetings, and if I’m sitting on the couch, I’ll use it as a tablet and Review documents or I don’t know, look at other things that I need to, low effort stuff that I can do at night. I’ve taken it into client meetings, I’ve taken it into seminars and written down stuff. I love it. I’ve always been a handwritten guy for as much as I love tech. I was the old school guy who sat there with my fountain pen and actually wrote out all my

Adriana Linares:

Notes in law school,

Philip Mauriello:

In law school because I read that the research is, and this is a tip for all law students.

Adriana Linares:

Good one

Philip Mauriello:

Hand, write your notes because there’s a better brain hand connection and you’ll actually remember the information better.

Adriana Linares:

I’ve always heard that too, and I’ve always heard that dictating, which a lot of young lawyers don’t think to do, don’t want to do, also makes you just a better orator and communicator. So that whole idea of not being completely tech focused all the time can really create some great skills and some good habits. What other technology tools do you use that are important to you?

Philip Mauriello:

I just started with Smith ai.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, you did?

Philip Mauriello:

Yep.

Adriana Linares:

I like them.

Philip Mauriello:

The comfort and just the ease of it also feels really cool. When you have a receptionist taking your call,

Adriana Linares:

Tell us what it is.

Philip Mauriello:

So Smith AI is a virtual receptionist

Adriana Linares:

And the website is smith.ai,

Philip Mauriello:

Smith.ai and you can sign up for a free trial. That’s what I did, and I just rolled it into a full plan. But yeah, they take your calls, they screen your calls as well, so you’re not paying for every single call, which is nice. So if it’s a sales call that wasn’t prompted or anything, they won’t charge you for that. But it’s nice, they take a message, they send you an email. If it’s important, they’ll patch you through. And it’s nice to know that you’re not dropping any calls. And especially as a solo, it can be burdensome to always have to be picking up the phone,

Adriana Linares:

Even as a None solo can be burdensome

Philip Mauriello:

And it just sounds more professional when someone picks up and says, hello, welcome to Thank you for calling Ate Law, how can I help you? And then they say, oh, there’s a receptionist here. And then they say something or they want to schedule a consult. Smith AI can do that as well. If you use Calendly,

Adriana Linares:

Excellent,

Philip Mauriello:

They’ll go right into your Calendly and schedule it. And that’s always a nice little surprise when you see like, oh, new consult popped up. Perfect. It’s already been taken care of. They took care of all the notes and stuff like that. So virtual receptionist, if you’re a new firm, definitely look into it.

Adriana Linares:

You mentioned marketing earlier. Did you get some marketing help building your website? Do you have a logo? Tell us a little bit about either what you did or where you are with that.

Philip Mauriello:

Well, my logo, I believe I used Fiverr.

Adriana Linares:

Okay,

Philip Mauriello:

Cool. And I know a lot of people like to downplay Fiverr. I got a nice logo out of it. And yeah, I had worked on that sort of also during law school, came up with the logo, but I also designed websites and helped some attorneys with SEO in law school as sort of a side gig. Did.

Adriana Linares:

Oh yeah, you’re a nerd and a half.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, so it’s okay. I learned it for myself at least, so I didn’t have to pay someone else to do it. And then I started helping other attorneys do it. So

Adriana Linares:

Did you do it in WordPress?

Philip Mauriello:

I used Wix.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, okay. Okay. Tell us about your chat service. Who does that?

Philip Mauriello:

So that’s through Wix as

Adriana Linares:

Well,

Philip Mauriello:

And that’s another integration I haven’t opted for yet. With Smith ai, you can actually have them respond to your chats.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, excellent.

Philip Mauriello:

As of right now, it’s just me responding to the chats.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. Hey, baby steps, man. Okay, so you’ve got Smokeball smith.ai,

Philip Mauriello:

You

Adriana Linares:

Pc, what else? Office 365 or G Suite?

Philip Mauriello:

Office 365.

Adriana Linares:

Okay, great.

Philip Mauriello:

Outlook, all that.

Adriana Linares:

Any little add-ons that you like? Do you use a password manager? Do you use any of those grammar tools?

Philip Mauriello:

Grammarly.

Adriana Linares:

You do? Did you pay for it

Philip Mauriello:

For a while? I did.

Adriana Linares:

I think I paid for the year subscription mainly because for me, and I’ve said this before on the show, so sorry if you have to hear it twice or maybe three times when I type, it’s very free flow. I don’t want to think about apostrophes and sometimes capital letters and stuff. So afterwards when I go to reread it, if it’s long, I like the way Grammarly fixes those simple things. I don’t necessarily, although it does do a good job of recommending better verbiage sometimes. Okay. And then how about resources outside of technology? You’re a solo practitioner. A big complaint that I hear from solos is they miss the camaraderie of being in a big firm or being able to walk down the hall and ask another attorney how this or that. So do you do that here in theBar?

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, I chat with some of the other attorneys. You start to see if you hang around here enough, you start to see sort of the same people who come here. So you start to get to know them and they get to know you. But one resource that I use, I work out of my own home office, is this thing called Lawyer Slack. I can’t remember his lawyer Smack or lawyer Slack.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, I think it’s Lawyer Smack. I thought it was the Associate’s Mind, but maybe that’s Keith. I’ll look it up right now. Maybe that’s his Twitter handle. Okay. But tell us about it while I’m pulling it up to make sure we send people to the right resource.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, I think it’s lawyer Smack. I get confused because it’s housed, if you’ve ever heard of the app of Slack, it’s on Slack and it’s a resource where it’s a big chat room with attorneys all over the country.

Adriana Linares:

It’s the leading private community for lawyers. And you’re a member?

Philip Mauriello:

I’m a member, yeah.

Adriana Linares:

So what does that mean? What makes it worth it? What are you doing in there?

Philip Mauriello:

I first started using it is sort of like a listserv, sort of like here at the San Diego County bar. Whenever you have a question, you always kind of just shoot out an email. Can anyone help me with this? Has anyone encountered this before? So that’s how I first started using it because they have all these different channels for all different practices and they have a solo small firm channel, which is very active where you can go in and say, Hey, I have a question. How would I do this? Does this look like a good client? And it’s good to just have that resource to bounce off of people. I’ll go in there and say, Hey, this client contacted me and this is their story. And then I’ll have them responses of run very far away. Don’t even drop that client or whatever. But it’s also good. I call it my water cooler because there’s all different channels for food or music or one called Chitchat, which is just you chatting about anything. There’s a good California channel, which is a very active for California attorneys. So it’s my water cooler if you work solo and you just kind of want that comradery of people to talk to.

That’s what I mostly use it for, is just to chat with people. I still use it to bounce ideas off of people. And in fact, this past weekend was the Clio conference and a lot of them came out and because I live here and I was able to show them around and because we had chatted so much through this program, once you met ’em in person, it was like, oh, just seeing old friends again and hanging out with ’em.

Adriana Linares:

I love that.

Philip Mauriello:

So it’s a great resource if you work by yourself to get out there and meet other attorneys. And

Adriana Linares:

Obviously it’s good advice. I mean, it can’t always be good advice. That might be occasionally bad advice, but you’ve got a place to go to get advice

Philip Mauriello:

And they’re very like, what’d you call the angry lawyers?

Adriana Linares:

Sorry, Keith. Yes, but I said that to his face over the weekend.

Philip Mauriello:

They’re super nice,

Adriana Linares:

Angry young lawyers, but you’re not. I know it’s a joke.

Philip Mauriello:

I think I had a question the other day and I just prefaced it with, oh, this is totally a new question. But they were very helpful and they’re like, don’t worry about it. It’s a complicated issue. And they’re always willing to help and they’re always willing to give advice. And

Adriana Linares:

I love that. I love that about lawyers. I find lawyers are very generous with their knowledge and their time, and especially if you actually put it out there. So many lawyers don’t have a place to put those questions. So I’m glad to hear about that. So I want to go back and ask you a couple more quick questions before we close this segment, just money-wise. So 1 35 a year. So let’s say $11 a month for lawyer Slack is what you paid or paying $8 a month for Office 365. I take it Smokeball is about,

Philip Mauriello:

I got a deal, I whittled them down to $99 a month. I think they’re like one 30 a

Adriana Linares:

Month. Alright, so a hundred dollars a month ish for practice management. What do you do your time in billing? In

Philip Mauriello:

Smokeball.

Adriana Linares:

In Smokeball. Okay. So it does time billing, case management, document assembly, document management, and you’re paying Oh, Smith ai.

Philip Mauriello:

They’re a little more expensive now because they handle, I don’t know how many calls they handle now, but they gave me a plan that’s like $200 a month. But when you compare that with paying a receptionist nine to five to sit at your desk or sit at a desk, it’s

Adriana Linares:

Definitely

Philip Mauriello:

Better.

Adriana Linares:

It is a hard thing. That’s a conversation I have a lot with lawyers. They’re like two 50 a month. I’m like, what are you going to pay a human? I mean, you’re not going to get a human for two 50 a month at your desk all the time. And what if you don’t want to have a desk? You want to be mobile.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, that’s the one thing I would mean. I’ve only been out for three months, so I’m not an expert by any means, but maybe this is the business entrepreneur in me that says you have to look at your time and how much it’s worth. So even if you’re billing, you’re a new attorney and say, well, I only want to bill $200 an hour. You have to think of everything that you could be doing to make money and make those billable hours or you’re going to be wasting time. So if you want to look into a virtual assistant or a paralegal or someone who can contract that work out. If it’s cheaper to pay someone $50 an hour as a paralegal to draft and file a complaint, it saves you how much time to go make money elsewhere. So I think that’s one thing that it’s tough because in the beginning you’re thinking, well, I want to save all this money and I don’t want to spend money. But you sort of, and the old adage is true, you have to spend money to make money.

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, no, it’s totally true. Okay, we’re back with Philip Moreo of a law. Philip was just telling us kind of a rundown of your monthly costs for running your solo small practice. And we were at under two 50 I think. No, it was 200 ish for Smith ai, which is your virtual receptionist. And you think it’s worth every penny about a hundred dollars for Smokeball. Totally worth it helps you keep everything in one place. Office 365 is a few bucks. Do you have Acrobat or anything for Adobe? PDF manipulation?

Philip Mauriello:

I just signed up for Acrobat. I had to edit some document for e-filing.

Adriana Linares:

Yep. So another 13 or $15 a month for that. So you’re running your whole practice, let’s just say for under $500 a month. And are you easily covering that in billable hours?

Philip Mauriello:

Oh yeah. Good. Yeah, it’s not that bad when you look at it and especially if you work out of your own home. Plus professional liability

Adriana Linares:

Insurance,

Philip Mauriello:

50 bucks

Adriana Linares:

A month

Philip Mauriello:

For lawyers’ Mutual.

Adriana Linares:

No kidding.

Philip Mauriello:

Everyone

Adriana Linares:

Complains so much about how expensive it is.

Philip Mauriello:

There’s a program called Strong Start, so it’s $50 a month for new attorneys and solo attorneys.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, great. Awesome. Very good advice. My next question was going to be, oh, where do you meet your clients?

Philip Mauriello:

Where do I meet them?

Adriana Linares:

Yeah, you don’t have an office. You’ve said you work from your home office. This is a question I get all the time, especially someone who wants to go out on their own, but that’s a big concern they have. Where do you meet your clients?

Philip Mauriello:

I meet ’em at this lovely bar center.

Adriana Linares:

So true. Not everyone has a bar center though, I have to say. San Diego’s bar center and it’s member lounge and it’s meeting rooms are really amazing. Do you have your mail delivered here? I don’t. It’s a free service.

Philip Mauriello:

I do.

Adriana Linares:

Okay. So that’s great. So you meet your clients here, maybe at a coffee shop if you must, or wherever you meet them. And how are you getting your clients?

Philip Mauriello:

It’s mostly referrals right now, but I’m starting to see more traffic to my website, which is nice. I’m starting to see, I just had a consult through someone who contacted me through my chat. And the nice thing about Wix is you can set it up that if you book, I think you have a page that is booking online so you can set it up and they go into your calendar. So I booked a consult. I just started with Convert It Marketing. There are Google PPC company for attorneys, so we’ll see where that goes. They just started a week ago. So PPC takes a while for it to kind of

Adriana Linares:

About six months before you can see results.

Philip Mauriello:

It starts to gear up for a little bit. It doesn’t happen immediately. So yeah, referrals, a little bit of marketing website is huge. Make sure you have a good website that people can find and it looks really nice and professional. It’s

Adriana Linares:

Critical.

Philip Mauriello:

And that’s basically the main sources. I mean, I’m sure that’s the main sources for every attorney.

Adriana Linares:

And when you talked to another young lawyer and they say, well, how did you do it? Or What’s the one thing you didn’t know that you wish you knew? Now I know you’re only three months in, but you’re pretty sage for having three months of soulness behind you. What are some of the tips or advice that you would, I mean, you’ve given us a lot of great advice. Know where your money is better spent or your time. Know where your time is better spent, put the right technologies in place, even if it means making an uncomfortable switch at first.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah, definitely have phases set up for when your firm starts to build and quickly because you don’t want to be caught flatfooted and you don’t want to not be prepared or miss a case or miss a client because you weren’t ready or you weren’t ready to take stuff on. Have a lot of that stuff waiting in the wings. You don’t necessarily have to pay for it, but you can say this is a resource that when I hit X amount of clients or X amount of revenue, I know I’m going to tap into so that if I have extra work, I’ll just assign it over here and I’ll get it taken care of or things that will make your life easier. And the other big piece of information, and this actually was because I listened to one of your episodes about the eight commandments of getting paid. Oh

Adriana Linares:

Yeah. With Marco Brown. That was

Philip Mauriello:

A good one. And it’s hard for new solos, and I know it’s really hard. You don’t want to hear this, but get money upfront, get a retainer. It makes it a whole lot easier when it comes to client relationships. And I think Mark even talked about that it’s bad when you have to start chasing clients and looking for money. So I would say that it also gives you the peace of mind that the money’s there and it’s coming in. And don’t be afraid. This was something someone in lawyer Smack told me, you make more money off the cases you don’t take than the ones you do. And I’ve turned down a fair amount of kind of duds in the past month alone of clients that you look at and say, okay,

Adriana Linares:

Your gut tells you.

Philip Mauriello:

Your gut tells you they’re not the right client. It’s not worth pursuing. They’re not sure what they want. So you don’t want to try and just chase the money. Yeah. So those are hard things. I know for solos to hear turning down money or asking for money upfront, but

Adriana Linares:

It’s the smart way to go.

Philip Mauriello:

It’s the smart way to go.

Adriana Linares:

Did you have a business plan when you started an official one? I know you had a business plan in your mind and you had worked on it really hard, but did you actually have an official business plan?

Philip Mauriello:

I did. I had financials.

Adriana Linares:

You did?

Philip Mauriello:

Like vague financials.

Adriana Linares:

Wow.

Philip Mauriello:

Yeah.

Adriana Linares:

Lawyers don’t do good math.

Philip Mauriello:

No, I know. They’re not known for math. I’m not known for math either. My sister is the CPA, so I got the lawyer aspect. She got the numbers aspect.

Adriana Linares:

That’s awesome. Another question for you. You planning to grow or do you like being solo and you think, oh, I’m going to stay solo forever?

Philip Mauriello:

No, I plan on growing. That wasn’t my business plan of, I think there’s, and I’m not trying to be facetious or over ambitious, but I think there’s a better way to practice legal and especially marrying technology with the legal world right now, you can do law a lot better. And I’m starting to see there’s great law firms here in San Diego that are doing it really well. So yeah, I want to grow it eventually to start hiring people and find a nice office space and be a firm that’s established, well established here for many years to come. So

Adriana Linares:

I love that. Very ambitious. It’s going to happen. And are you on any of the social media? Do you use social media at all?

Philip Mauriello:

I do.

Adriana Linares:

Okay.

Philip Mauriello:

That’s another tool I use later.com. That’s my Instagram scheduling.

Adriana Linares:

L-A-T-E-R.

Philip Mauriello:

Yep.

Adriana Linares:

Oh, for scheduling posts and stuff.

Philip Mauriello:

Yep.

Adriana Linares:

Anyway. Well thanks everyone for listening. And Philip, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your very sage advice with us. Very much appreciate it. That was Philip Mauriello brand new attorney when that aired. I hope you liked hearing his creative tactics for getting up and running so quickly. This is part of New Solo first flight series presented by Alps Insurance. I’m joined by Rio Laine Alps, director of Strategic Partnerships. Rio has years of experience helping attorneys get their best practices sorted out through their bar associations. And now with Alps, insurance Resources. Rio, you have met a lot of solo attorneys over the years with your various roles in the profession. What are some of the strategies you liked that Philip shared with us to get up and going so quickly when launching a new law practice?

Rio Laine:

Something that definitely stuck out to me is scrappy. That’s I think a really good word to describe him. Absolutely. And something that he really touched on and kind of mentioned a lot is that he thought ahead. He did a lot of thinking about what he would need, not just to start his practice, but in a little while after he started his practice in the few months in the year, et cetera. And one thing that he really thought through was money. And that I find is something that’s really often overlooked. A lot of law firms don’t realize that to run a business you need to have money, you need to be able to cashflow yourself for a little while until that revenue starts coming in. And he was also thinking about things like malpractice insurance, which obviously I love. That’s a really good thing for you to be thinking of your love language starting your law firm. Yeah, speaking my love language. So malpractice insurance, but also business insurance for his law firm. That’s obviously something that Alps does a lot of. So something else that I really admired was that he thought about not just the finance part of it, the insurance part of it, but also what technology he needed. And I know he talked a lot about practice management software. I know that’s your love language.

Adriana Linares:

I was just going to say that’s my love language. Yes. I was very impressed with all the same things that you’re describing with him. Especially the planning ahead. Yes.

Rio Laine:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it was his experience past experience with business and having an understanding of that that made him really think about those things. Because a lot of lawyers, as we know, they don’t learn those things in law school. They really, unfortunately, which they should just don’t learn those skills and strategies that they need to run an actual business. So yes, thinking about that practice management software, thinking about his website again, how he’s going to find clients thinking through all those pieces, I really appreciated that. Those are obviously things that often get overlooked and think when it comes to practice management software, that’s also really, really important. It helps you really mitigate a whole bunch of things, a lot of things that tend to put you at risk for having a malpractice claim, like your calendaring, your communications with clients, staying on top of your deadlines and everything. That’s really, really important. So it’s good to see that he was thinking about that right off the bat.

Adriana Linares:

If I can pop in and just remind attorneys that one of the best things that practice management can help prevent, and you’re going to love this Rio, is malpractice claims, administrative malpractice claims, right? I always say I can’t help you if you’re going to steal money from your client or decide to sleep with your client. Case management can’t help you with that. But let me tell you, when it comes to missed deadlines, missing files, failure to communicate, failure to supervise, holy moly, just don’t know if there’s a better tool than today’s modern practice management systems that can help you reduce those risks.

Rio Laine:

And I think a lot of new lawyers really underestimate how many things are going to require their attention when they start their practice. It’s really easy to take for granted to think that, oh, I can keep everything in my head or on a notepad, et cetera. But when you couple all of the needs of your cases with the needs of your business, it’s really easy for things to slip through the cracks. So a good solid case management software is essential and preferably one that has billing built into it because again, that kind of comes full circle back to the financing. You not only need that money for startup or need financing for startup, but you also need to be thinking about how you’re going to be bringing in a revenue going forward so that you can continue to run your business. And speaking of financing, something that I appreciated in his thinking about it was where can a law firm get that financing? I mean, lines of credit are amazing. Small business loans obviously try to avoid credit cards as the interest is too high and you can end up probably, you can end up in a very sticky financial situation with your law firm. So a lot of forward thinking with Philip and I really admire that because something that all new solos should be doing is trying to think about all of the different things that they need to consider when running their practice or when starting their practice.

Adriana Linares:

Lemme ask you a question that I actually get asked a lot, and maybe the answer is yes, and maybe it’s no, and maybe there’s something in between. But a lot of attorneys will ask me if I have all these processes, procedures, the right backup, a practice management system that’s going to help me reduce my risk, do I get any sort of discount or is there a way that my premium will be affected by being able to show that I have all these tools, services or programs in place?

Rio Laine:

Having those systems in place may not reduce your premium immediately, but what they do do is reduce your likelihood of having a claim. And then over time, if you don’t have any claims, your premium is going to go down and lower. That’s way to

Adriana Linares:

Look at lower risk.

Rio Laine:

Yeah, you’re going to be a much, much lower risk. And so over time it will go down. And there’s also other things you can do like that also we’ve found contributes to lower risk for claims

And yeah, absolutely. So not only that, but having all of those things in place, if something does happen, if there is an issue, you have a record of everything, you can go back and you can say, okay, well did I actually do something that has caused the situation or was there a misunderstanding, et cetera. And that can certainly help when dealing with a claim if one does arise, because ideally you want to be found not at fault for that. So being able to kind of back yourself up is also a good reason to have all those things in place.

Adriana Linares:

You triggered a thought when you mentioned specialization. And I know that a lot of attorneys when they’re first launching their solo practice, whether they are new attorneys or new solos, they will practice what we all jokingly call as door law, which is anything that walks in the door, they’re going to take the case because they’re getting started. But you mentioned that specializing is something that you should consider as far as reducing your risk. I think the why is obvious for that, but it’s really great to always hear a professional, someone with your background and experience, explain to us why.

Rio Laine:

I think it’s really, really easy to again, want to just take on everything that comes away thinking, oh, I’m getting all this great experience, but what you’re actually doing is kind of opening yourself up to a lot of risk because you’re coming into territory that you’re likely not familiar with. Maybe you’re accepting clients that are not a good fit for you and are going to be difficult down the road. So taking the time to think about what you’re interested in and what you want to practice and understand and the area you want to practice in is a really good way to reduce your risk. Because when you specialize, you have a deep understanding of not just the law but also the procedures around that, around how to practice. You understand the communication timelines, you understand the deadlines and understanding those things and being able to manage them reduces your risk greatly.

So being a master of your craft instead of a jack of all trades, which can be good sometimes, but in this case, being a master of that really helps you to ensure that you’re dotting your i’s and crossing all of your T’s when it comes to all of those procedures and processes and everything. It also means that you can build your own processes in your law firm that work really well for you and your clients and also make sure that you’re hitting all those deadlines and stuff, which is really, really important to have all of those things down. And if you don’t really understand the area of law that you’re practicing or if you’re doing a whole bunch of things, then it’s difficult to build processes that actually work and are going to keep you and your clients on track.

Adriana Linares:

Right. Well that’s great. Very helpful. The last question I’m going to ask you before I let you go is to give us a couple of tips about getting up and running quickly. I mean, it sounds to me like there’s risk right there and just rushing to get up and running because we really need to start billing some hours and bringing some money in. But what tips do you have insofar as doing that cautiously, but correctly

Rio Laine:

And quickly? Yes,

Adriana Linares:

All the things.

Rio Laine:

Yes. So unfortunately the one I have is probably the least popular, but it is document, document everything, document your processes, document your systems, use checklists, use forms. There’s a lot of really incredible resources. Online Alps for example, we have a great library of practice management resources that you can rely on, but make sure that you’re documenting all of those things because that’s going to help you A understand how your business is running. Because running a business and running a case are different. They’re very different. So when it comes to your business, you’re documenting everything. You know how everything’s running, you can identify inefficiencies, what isn’t working, what is, et cetera. So that’s my big one is document things. But also two, understand that when you’re seeking out resources or advice from other people, just because something worked for one law firm doesn’t always mean it’s going to work for yours. Law firms are like snowflakes. They’re all different. So don’t be afraid to adjust a process to try something a little bit different to maneuver or to adjust things in a way that works best for your specific law firm. And don’t panic if you’re law firm’s different than someone else’s, that’s totally fine. That’s absolutely fine. What matters is that it works and you are able to do your job and serve your clients to the best of your ability and in the best way possible.

Adriana Linares:

You mentioned some resources that are helpful, and I will tell you, I actually received two emails from a couple of our little conversations together of someone saying, oh, I heard about this program. I’m reaching out to Rio. I’m totally looking into it. So can you remind everybody about those Alps, practice management resources and the community that you are building?

Rio Laine:

Yes, absolutely. So if you’re looking for practice management resources, you can go to alps insurance.com/resources. We’ve got a whole host of things on there, checklist, blog post guides, all sorts of incredible things. And coming up, we are building a community for small and solo law firms. So it’s called Attorney Hero, and it’s going to be kind of an online forum where you can come together to connect with other solo practitioners to just ask questions, get an understanding, get your questions answered, et cetera. We’ll be having lots of industry experts speaking monthly webinars, events. And it’s also a place where you can find a mentor or be a mentor if you are looking for someone. So we will be having more information coming on that soon. It’s a work in progress. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither community, so we are working on it. But in the meantime, if you do want to learn about it, you can go to alps insurance.com/attorney hero and sign up to get more information or be a beta tester. Wonderful.

Adriana Linares:

And remind everyone how they can get ahold of you if they have more

Rio Laine:

Questions. Yeah, absolutely. So I love it when people reach out. Don’t be shy. My email is R Lane, LAIN [email protected].

Adriana Linares:

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Rio, for another great chit-chat with you on New Solo first flight series presented by Alps Insurance. We hope you enjoyed listening to this, everyone, and we’ll see you next time on New Solo.

Announcer:

I’ve been running from nine to five, been my tongue for all this time. Won’t let anyone clock me show. I was thinking this was the way to go and you put up your puppet show. I say cheer to.

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