8 tips for new attorneys

Hi there. Linda Artesani, Artesani Accounting and The Proper Trust. This week I'm going to share 8 of my favorite bookkeeping tips for attorneys who are just starting out. Let's get started. So these are tips, basically, if you're an attorney starting out and you want to, or you want to grow your practice, you just started your business, how do you determine, A, when you're ready, and what are the steps you need to do to To really ensure that your career is gonna blossom and that you're not gonna be sitting there with maybe a trust or an IOLTA problem because you didn't set it up properly. So I think the first thing you need to do, if you're— even if you're working at a firm and you're really considering going out on your own, I think the first thing you need to do is consider getting some goals. So take a piece of lined paper. I know this sounds really old school. Yes, you can do it on a Google Doc. But I think writing is very cathartic. So if you could take a lined pad and just write down, you know, what are your goals? What do you— if you can sit back, maybe close your eyes and envision what your practice will look like, what does it look like in your mind, in your mind's eye? So you want to make SMART goals. And if you've never heard the term SMART goals, that's specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-constrained. So you want to have goals maybe for the short term. What are your business What is your business going to look like in 3 months, 5 months, a year, 5 years? So you want to actually do that research on that. The next step you want to do is you want to look and research your market. Is there a need for the kind of law that you're attempting to practice locally? Is there a market for your services? Be sure to target your demographic. Look at how much you charge for your services. That's determined by what others are charging in your area, unless you're completely specialized or there's there's not really anybody unique to your particular practice area. You really want to figure out what are you going to charge. If you're new to practicing law, you're fresh out of law school attorney, you know, that might be one thing. You don't have the experience under your belt. And when you're making those comparisons, make sure you think about those things. Once you've gathered all your insights, then you can determine what your next steps will be. And obviously one of the steps you're going to do is you're going to develop the practice. So you're not just going to go hang out your shingle, as the term goes, you know, find a law— an office and hang the shingle out and expect people to start to flood in the doors. That doesn't happen that way. So most law firms do build their practices out on referrals. Maybe you work with a law firm locally that's got a lot of work, but it is an overflow and they don't really have the people to be able to do the work. Right now there's a shortage of workers, staff attorneys and things of that ilk. So maybe you can reach out to some of the firms and say, look, I'm starting this business. If you have business you'd like to share with me work that you don't want to take, we can take, and then see if you can get that started. Don't forget about social media. Social media is very, very important, and so is developing relationships, even right down to your family. You want to let your family know this is what you're doing. They'll tell their friends. It can build from there. Social media is— and I'll get into that a little bit further here in the video— but social media is a great method to let everybody know what you're doing. And you have to do it often. So social media is not like I posted once that I've started my practice and then everybody knows about it because social media is kind of funny that way. For example, Facebook, I can post something in our Facebook group and I think it's like 11 people see it out of 350. That's not great odds, right? So you have to repetitively post, change the wording so you don't get the Twitter slap on the wrist because it's the same post over and over. They don't like that. So you want to make sure that you're you're creative in that messaging. You want to build strong relationships and network with other professionals. Perhaps join a BNI. Those business networking places are— there's some that are just specific. There's groups out there, not the BNI, but there's groups out there that are specific to law practice. You could do the ABA. They do breakfasts. Go there and maybe network with other attorneys. Build those professional relationships. And the last thing I could say about developing the practice is develop a great website. So important. If you don't have a great website, that's most of the times, that's how your people will actually, your clients will find you. And I've seen some pretty bad law firm websites. So make sure that you've created a really good one. You don't have to spend a lot of money, but find somebody maybe on Fiverr that can create a really nice one for you. Know what you want. Maybe get your hands in it because you're not that busy and create something that represents you. You wanna start to build that client base. So as you have this great website, you wanna start to get some good SEO, search engine optimization. You wanna have that good social presence where your clients live. So if they're millennials, they might be on Instagram. If they're Gen Z, they might be on TikTok. It's a kind of a strange place, but you might wanna start to Pepper in your family law. You might want to start to put messaging in on those platforms because that's where they are at night. And if they're kind of scrolling and going through a hard time or a crisis in their family, they might need to hire you. So that's an example of how you can really start to get your name out there. If you're a PI firm, I think of here in Florida, there's big signs, Morgan and Morgan, really big firm. It's everywhere. So you see that on billboards. PI firms That's one of the ways they get their name out there. So you want to have your name out there. You know, those are some of the places that you could work on that. You could also, for example, family law. If you think a little bit outside the box, most families go to ballgames. You could sponsor a plaque. They're there for 2 hours looking at your name. It's in their face. So they might not need you now, but they're able to. And that's local SEO. So you can even do Local sponsorships, get your name out there. It's important to do that. You can have a blog on your website. Blogs help keep Google happy. Feeding the beast of Google keeps your website fresh. The more you blog, the more your website is fresh. Now, it takes a lot of time to blog. I do it every week. Making the videos— videos are important. Get yourself on Google. That's ways that clients can find you. So it's a lot of ways. It takes your time, but it absolutely will help you. Get your name on legal directories. Those are just some, just some examples. If you're an attorney starting out on your own, establish yourself as an expert. If you create a Facebook group, maybe for family law, people in crisis, and you start to tell them little bits of advice, you have to be very careful what you say, obviously, because it's legal. But you can put disclaimers out there and you can just kind of lead them into your space. That's another way that you're able to do that by maybe sharing your blog. On, on a Facebook group. So it's your content on your website that you're sharing. Try to stay focused. It's so easy to sit there and go, oh, I've got all these tasks I have to take care of to start my firm. What do I do? Again, that line pad is essential. If you have to find a, an office space, you have to get your licenses, you have to do things with the bar, you have to get your trust bank account. Let me tell you, that is one hurdle. That can take a lot of your day setting it up. You have to find the right bank in your area that will allow you to have a trust bank account. A lot of these banks are closed during the day, so it's really important, critical to get that step handled early on. Don't wait till you have some money in hand and you don't have a place to put it. So make sure you stay compliant. That's really important. Keep learning, collect those CLEs. I know you're required to, but don't stop there. Keep learning. Learn about the greatest and best software. You can find that on my blog. I can tell you right out what I like. We only use 2 at our firm, LeanLaw and Clio, so I can save you time there. But also there's other, other software depending on your practice area that might save you time. Time's money. The more time you save with software, yes, you're putting money out for the software, but if you're paying $40 a month and it's saving you, I don't know, 10, 15 hours a month, Multiply your hourly rate right there. You're saving a lot of money. And if it's a lot of manual steps, really not worth your while. Lots of errors happen with manual steps. So having that software in place keeps you compliant. On the bookkeeping side, if you think you need help setting up bookkeeping, setting up your file, getting a good law-specific chart of accounts, don't go buy the one QuickBooks gives you because that's more or less for contractor or a service professional like a landscaper, make sure you reach out to somebody who can help you with that. Believe I've got it in one of my articles. I've got one that you can use. Set yourself up for success by setting up your records right away in the beginning. Keep and store every document that you get with your FEIN, anything you have that's got to do with the state. Save those files somewhere securely, whether it's a Google Drive that you pay for I use Licio. There's plenty of places that you can, and software that you can keep to store your files safely and securely. If you're practicing for a while, you want to make sure that you're not— if you've been practicing for a while, you want to make sure you're not in outdated software. You want to be in really good up-to-date software. I think that's probably about it. If you're setting up your accounting, don't use a spreadsheet. Please use software. We always recommend QuickBooks Online Advanced. Some firms can get away with a lesser product, but it— you get a lot of bells and whistles and automations baked right in. So that's about it for my best tips on starting your law practice. I hope this is helpful. Obviously, if you need help from an expert, we work with many firms, small to large. Our sweet spot is mid-market, but we do have some smaller clients. We're more than happy to help. If you're a bookkeeper or an accountant and you want to learn more about this, we also have the Accountants Law Lab Facebook group. I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful week. Bye now.