How to Start a Law Practice

 Posted on November 20, 2007 in Uncategorized

I proposed to my alma mater that someone should teach its students how to start a law practice, and volunteered to teach the course myself. I got this response:

Teaching law office management courses at the law school causes problems. The University doesn?t think they are ?law.

Of course! Any fool can see that teaching law students how to actually function as lawyers is clearly outside the ambit of a law school's duties. (With apologies to Victorian Maiden.)

The local chapter of Phi Alpha Delta was interested, though (lesson 1: So Many Ways to Skin a Cat). So I'll be conducting a three-hour introductory course on starting a law practice. It'll be January 23rd, February 6th, and February 20th of 2008. One of the three one-hour sessions - probably the second one - will be in the evening. The others will be at noon. All will be at a location to be announced later (probably somewhere at UHLC).

To my readers: What would you tell law students who might be interested in starting their own law practices? What do you wish you had been told before you started yours?