As mentioned in a few prior articles, I took the plunge and opened my own law firm about six months ago. At the time, I was happy to begin my own shop as a solo practitioner. I liked the control of operating as a solo, and it was also great to keep all of the profits my firm generated. However, I recently decided to partner up with one of my brothers, and so far, the experience has been extremely positive. For a number of reasons, partnering up with another lawyer can be much better than practicing solo.
The main advantage of partnering with another attorney is that having a partner allows each lawyer to share the burdens of running a practice. Managing a law firm is not easy. Tasks need to be completed on a daily basis, and you constantly need to fulfill administrative as well as client-related obligations. When I operated as a solo, I never felt like I could go on a vacation or take a break, since there would be no one left to mind the store. Now that I have partnered with my brother, someone is always around to complete the tasks that all law firms need to accomplish, and I have more flexibility.
In addition, partnering up with another lawyer improves how an attorney can provide services to a client. When I was a solo, there were times that I was slammed with work, and other times when I had little to do. Since I only had a limited amount of bandwidth when I was busy, this could impact the quality of the services I provided. Now that I have a partner, we can each share some of the work when we are busy, and focus on providing the highest quality of legal services.
Partnering up with another lawyer also increases the breadth of services you can provide to clients, which can make it more efficient for clients to hire your firm. For instance, I almost exclusively perform litigation work while my brother almost exclusively works on transactional matters. Now that we’ve partnered up, a client can use our firm for more services, and this can save a client time and money. Partnering with another lawyer can also make you feel more confident about handling legal matters. For example, within a month after starting my firm, while I was still getting a lot of my systems off the ground, I began working on a matter involving a large law firm. Things got ugly, and I ended up in tense negotiations to settle a matter. I’m not going to lie, it was a little intimidating being a newly-established solo against this large shop. However, because my brother joined my firm, our clients now have the Roth”men” on their side. As a result, I never have to feel like I’m alone in handling a legal issue, and this has had a positive impact on my psyche.
In addition, partnering with other lawyers also means that there are more people to split a firm’s overhead. When I operated a solo practice, I was exclusively responsible for all of my expenses, and as a result, I operated the firm on a shoe-string budget. I did not feel justified purchasing expensive equipment or subscriptions to helpful services, because I would have to eat the cost myself and the expense was not worth the benefit. However, after partnering with my brother, we have been sharing expenses. This has allowed us to increase the amount of support services that we have available, which permits us to focus more on practicing law. As I have seen firsthand, solo practitioners can get pinched financially, and this may be less likely to happen after partnering up.
Another benefit of partnering with another attorney is that there is always someone to talk to when strategizing on a legal matter. As many attorneys are probably aware, it often pays to confer with colleagues about legal issues, since they might suggest strategies and arguments that may not be obvious to a solo practitioner with one perspective on a case. However, when speaking to friends or colleagues at another firm, it might be difficult to convey all of the facts of a matter, and those attorneys might not be as invested in providing the most thorough analysis of an issue. However, having a partner allows attorneys to strategize with another practitioner who is able to hear all of the relevant facts of a matter.
Of course, it is important to select the right partner when deciding to move beyond solo practice. As the Cellino and Barnes breakup demonstrates, law firm partnerships are not always made to last. Conflicts invariably arise among partners, and you need to partner with people with whom you can have frank conversations without getting overly frustrated or offended. Of course, partnership is always a give and take, and you might not have as much control, or be entitled to as much of the profits, as you were if you practiced solo.
However, if you choose the right partner, forming a partnership can be much better than practicing as a solo attorney. Partnering up usually allows lawyers to share resources and work on matters more efficiently than they could be if they practiced alone.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New Jersey and New York law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.