Three Steps to Opening Your Own Law Firm

Law firms can be local, regional, national or international in scope, and can deal with a wide array of legal issues – from the personal to the corporate to the criminal.

But, when starting your own law firm, these issues are fairly far down the road. That’s because simply opening up shop, with your brand new legal business, can take time and energy, and will require astute planning and hard work from yourself and your partners. That’s not to say that it’s not perfectly possible, though – and this article aims to outline the steps you can take to ensure your law firm opens without a hitch.

Practical and Logistical Set-Up

Before you even consider how your company will operate, what your client base will look like, and how your business plan will take shape, you’re going to need some very basic underpinning work. You’re going to need trained lawyers with the certification to prove that they’ve made the bar. You’ll also need special permission from law institutions to set up your law firm – which you should seek as soon as possible.
In terms of other logistical concerns – you should be well aware of the locality that you wish to serve, and the specialisms that your current team possess so that you know which legal services you’re able and willing to provide from the outset. Find a respectable, trustworthy office to base yourselves in, and work on setting it up for peak functionality as soon as possible.

Workload Management

As you achieve your first few clients, you’ll find that you will gain a better understanding of your workload in the coming weeks, months, and years. You may start with a single client with a single case, or with a variety of clients, all with smaller cases to manage. To understand your case-by-case workload, a case management system like that provided by redbricksolutions.co.uk is fundamental to your ongoing success.
Meanwhile, you should always have your ear close to the ground in your local law institutions – and especially with those individuals training to be lawyers. This way, you’ll be able to tap quickly into the human resources you might need in the future – including trainees and interns who can help you shift the easier cases.

Partners and Longevity

The best law firms work on reputation. If you wish to surpass the realms of mere local law provisions – the kind of family or small business attorneys who service your local community – you’re going to need to work hard on your reputation from the get-go. A big part of that is securing law partners who’re operating at the very top of their game, to work on your team. Ambitious law firms always bid for and liaise on the big cases, whether those are on the local, regional, national, or international level. Be bold and ambitious, and be prepared to shift your workload to accommodate these bigger cases – cases that can make your new law firm’s name in the industry.
Organizing your legal team inside your very own firm can be a daunting task – but it’s one that is achievable when the tips above are considered in the set-up phase.