Finding first clients, setting fees, and building a practice from zero.
Plenty of solos could not tell you their profit margin, because they never read their own financials. The profit and loss statement is the one report that tells you whether your firm is actually working. Here is how to read it.
Bookkeeping is the task solos avoid until it causes a trust problem or a tax mess. It is not hard, but it has legal-specific requirements a generic approach misses. Here are the basics every solo law firm needs from day one.
When you go solo, no employer withholds your taxes, and the government still wants its money four times a year. Attorneys who do not plan for this get a brutal surprise. Here is how to handle quarterly taxes without the April panic.
Clients increasingly expect to pay by card, and firms that accept them get paid faster and more fully. But credit cards intersect with trust accounting and surcharge rules in ways that trip up the unwary. Here is what to know before you turn them on.
Every time you pay a filing fee or an expert on a client's behalf, your firm becomes a short-term lender. Without a policy, advanced costs pile up and cash flow suffers. Here is how to advance and recover costs without financing your practice into trouble.
Case costs are not the same as fees, and hard costs are not the same as soft costs. Getting the distinction wrong muddles your books and can create ethics problems. Here is what new attorneys need to know about handling case expenses.
The same hour of work can get paid in full or written down to nothing depending on how you describe it. Vague, jargon-filled, or block-billed entries invite disputes and cuts. Here is how to write descriptions clients understand and pay.
The time you do not record is invisible revenue leaking out of your practice, and most attorneys lose far more than they realize. Here is how to capture every billable hour with habits and tools that make timekeeping effortless.
Going solo means losing the firm infrastructure that quietly kept you compliant. New solos tend to hit the same handful of ethics traps first. Knowing them in advance is the easiest way to stay out of them.
A client asking for their money back triggers ethics duties, cash-flow questions, and reputation risk all at once. The key is knowing what portion of the fee you have actually earned. Here is how to handle a refund request the right way.
Your first contingency matter runs on the fee agreement, which protects both you and the client, if it is done right. Here is what a contingency fee agreement must contain, explained clause by clause, and the rules you have to follow.
When a case is bigger than you can handle alone, you have two good options: bring in co-counsel and stay involved, or refer it out and hand it off. Choosing between them is one of the most useful judgment calls a new attorney can learn.
