I’m in my first month of practice. I’m trying to grow my commercial litigation firm. I’ve had mentors send me cases but the potential clients aren’t signing with me or answering my follow up phone call. I’m considering signing up to be appointed in criminal cases. I need trial experience but I’m worried this will distract me from building my practice. I have 8 months worth of saving for expenses. What would you do? Bring money in/get experience, or focus on building my core practice.

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Posting as :
works at
You are currently posting as works at

What state are you in?

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First month of practice and you can’t hook business yet!?!?

Relax. Come back and complain 8 years in please.

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Don’t be so glib. OP is not complaining.

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My advice is to find a couple of established solos that you can do overflow work for (giving them a referral cut) and instead of getting mentors to give you a phone number, have them refer the client to you through a referral agreement. Straying from your core practice area to pay the bills is very very risky (although admittedly sometimes necessary). I represent solo and small law firms as outside General Counsel, DM me if you’d ever like to chat.

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You should do a mock intake consultation with one of your mentors, to get some feedback. Or you could, with permission, include a mentor on one of your consultations, with you taking the lead. You might unintentionally be turning some of these potential clients off, and there might be an easy fix that someone with more experience could spot.

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