Consultants For Solos

Good news for all of you who are forced want to practice on your own. There is a whole new industry cropping up: consultants for lawyers. Teerie Wheeler is teaching lawyers in Minnesota how to market themselves as many are forced to go solo.

Wheeler coaches lawyers in marketing techniques, because she says, “law schools don’t train lawyers to be business people.” No shit. That’s because if the law schools did, everyone would realize school was a bad business decision and drop out.

Julie Schaefer, a human resources consultant has a great term for solo practitioners: “involuntary small firms.” Yes, Julie, from taking the bar to paying off those loans, quite a bit of the legal experience is “involuntary.”

Judy Norberg, another new solo law firm consultant noted: “A lot of lawyers don’t understand the financial part of things.” Yes, Ms. Norberg, none of us do until the diploma hits our hand and Aunt Sallie starts calling every night.

It is comforting to know that if we do decide to go solo, there are vultures consultants just waiting to help, for a hefty fee, of course. However, our friends at Solo Practice U may have already beaten them to the carcass.