Interview with Marc D. Garfinkle, Esq., author of $olo Contendere: How to Go Directly from Law School into the Practice of Law - Without Getting a Job

Marc Garfinkle, Esq., is a solo practitioner in Maplewood, NJ.  Marc is an award winning speaker and adjunct professor of Persuasion and Advocacy at Seton Hall Law School.  He often speaks to new lawyers about going solo right out of law school.  These bridging the gap seminars draw from his book $olo Contendere: How to Go Directly from Law School into the Practice of Law – Without Getting a Job.  We sat down with Marc to discuss his new book. 

Q: Marc, what led you to write $olo Contendere?

A: As adjunct faculty at Seton Hall Law,  I began to see more and more of our best qualified students who were unable to find jobs or whose job offers had been put on “hold.”   Even those that could find work in other fields could not earn what they needed to pay back their education loans.  They had increasing despair and bitterness about their choice of careers.  I wanted to tell them that if they REALLY want to be lawyers, they can be.   I wanted to give them encouragement and a new perspective.    I had gone solo in San Francisco in 1978, then moved east and hung out a shingle in New Jersey (??!@@$?, you say?) in 1982.   I learned so many lessons that new solos need to know.  I know that lawyers don’t need jobs.  We need clients.  I know that cream rises to the top.  I know that honest lawyers can still get ahead.   I know that they can make it.   And they don’t need to have a boss; albeit, they need guidance and insurance. 

              

Q: When you were graduated from U.C. Hastings College of Law in 1978, you didn’t have a job offer from a firm.  What made you decide to take the leap and start off as a solo practitioner?

A: I began law school thinking that someday I’d like to write.  I never had a great passion for office work.  I had already worked as a deck hand on a barge, as a paid lecturer, as a door-to-door salesman, a house-painter, and a private investigator.  I would have thrown myself out of the window or cussed out a senior partner if I had taken a job  in a downtown office full of lawyers.  Phi Beta Kappa notwithstanding, I was in the very middle of my class at Hastings, but employable in the then-market.  I just didn’t want to have to wear a suit, unless I was going to court or a funeral.

I had a great education and I loved the law.  I knew it would offer me topics to write about.  Then, for thirty years, I was so busy practicing, I forgot to write.  Now, oddly, and unpredictably, I wind up writing about the lessons I’ve learned during the career I’ve had. 

Q: What was the best advice you were given when you were starting out?

A: Send a thank you every time someone refers you a client, and staple papers at a 45 degree angle so it doesn’t tear the papers over time.  Do people still know what staples are?

Q: What do you wish someone had told you when you began your solo practice.

A: It probably doesn’t matter;  I probably wouldn’t have listened.  In large measure, people don’t seem to learn from other people’s mistakes.  We seem to learn only from our own.  In a profession that is also a career, it is important to learn from the missteps of others.  It would untrue for me to say that the information in my book is about how I built my practice.  It would be truer to say that it’s about how I’d do it the next time.

Q: What do you love most about being a solo practitioner?  

A: It changes.  Once, it was leaving at noon to take the kids sleigh-riding.  Later it became the four-day weekends at a friend’s lake house.  It’s having clients, not just files, as so many lawyers do.  It’s being able to charge whatever reasonable fee I want, or to turn down a client because I didn’t care for the person.  It’s about me getting out of a sticky potential conflict without a partner telling me why I should hang in there.  It’s all good.

Q: Do you think  law students graduating now, in 2011, can start their legal career as solo practitioners?

A: No doubt.  Not all will succeed, of course.  Not all will like it.  But, despite the economy and even with minimal seed money, most lawyers can develop a plan, carve out a niche and scratch up enough work.  It may mean working for other lawyers or even keeping another job on the side, at first.   There will unquestionably be long hours.  They will spend as much time working on their practices as they spend working on their cases.  But, in the end, they will have something they don’t have now, and which no one can ever take from them – experience.

Q: What kind of challenges does a new attorney face as a solo practitioner?

A: The financial challenges aside, new attorneys face all the challenges of being a professional and those of being a business owner.  They usually have little experience as either and so, the challenge is to remember that  “you don’t know what you don’t know.”  Understand how complex the law is, how unambiguous your ethical mandate is and how fallible your judgment can be, and you will meet the challenges handily.

Q: What advice would you give a new attorney that wants to “go solo”?

A: Don’t be discouraged by well-meaning friends and family who are skeptics and nay-sayers.   Even when the people who care most about you are questioning your sanity, your ability, or both, keep your eye on the ball. 

Don’t charge less because you have less experience, charge MORE.  After all, you’re going to spend time getting to the level of knowledge and comfort that you’ll need.   Price fairly, but don’t sell yourself short.

Unless it will harm your client, you should always extend a courtesy to your adversary, such as agreeing to an extension of time or to an adjournment.  Don’t let your client call this shot.

When speaking with to another lawyer who may wish to hire you per diem, approach her as an equal.  You are not employer/employee; you are both professionals and your services meet her needs.

Send thank you notes to everyone who treats you well. 

Keep your trust account and business accounts in separate banks.  That way, you’ll probably never screw up a deposit, and you will establish contacts with two sets of bankers.

Don’t be afraid to ask “stupid questions” of other lawyers.  It’s better to admit ignorance to a colleague than to demonstrate it to a client!

Don’t take any case that two other lawyers have handled before you.

Read the ethics rules from time to time.  We sometimes forget what’s in there. 

Carry malpractice insurance so you can sleep at night. 

Enjoy the ride, counsel.  It should be fun.  Make it so.

 

Q: The Ohio State Bar and the Missouri State Bar both have purchased the right to publish $olo Contendere.   Oregon is offering a copy to all lawyers attending their summer program about opening an office.  Why do the bar associations like your book so much?

 

A: They like it for the same reason that I like it:  it gives simple advice that is almost universally true.  They also like it because the strongest threads in book are themes that are high on state bar agendas:  

     1.  Inexperienced lawyers should always have mentors.   

     2.  Practice ethically and with civility. 

     3.  Practice Defensively

Some state bars and some law schools seem reluctant to embrace the idea of going solo right out of the box.  They won’t endorse programs or hire speakers that encourage inexperienced lawyers to go hang out a shingle.   More states are recognizing that there really are many neophyte practitioners out there scouring the countryside for clients, and who may be dangers to themselves, their clients and to the profession.   They offer mandatory “new Lawyer” CLE, and mentoring groups and on-line help and advice.   The book is just another source of good advice for new lawyers hoping to make it on their own.  $olo Contendere says, “If you are going to try to do this, here are a few things you should know.”   

Marc’s book, $olo Contendere: How to Go Directly from Law School into the Practice of Law – Without Getting a Job, is available through amazon.com.  We also have a signed copy to give away to a randomly-selected commenter! Let us know what you think of this article and you could win a signed copy of $olo Contendere!