Law

The best way to grow your business as a sole trader law firm is to step out of your lawyerly shoes and develop a marketing mindset. But for lawyers, who are primarily trained for their technical skills rather than their marketing nous, this can be harder than it sounds.

Michael Terceiro is the principal of Terceiro Legal Consulting. He left his role at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to start his business, which specialises in providing trade practices advice.

According to Terceiro, the most challenging aspect of striking out on your own as a lawyer is developing a client base. “Lots of lawyers love the law and are great at their job, but to run your own practice you also need to market. Building an effective marketing plan to develop my client base without spending too much has been one of the biggest challenges”, he says.

But Terceiro says traditional marketing tools such as print advertising and the Yellow Pages are not necessarily the best way to create a profile for a small law firm. Instead, Terceiro advises other lawyers who are thinking about setting up their own shop to focus on less traditional media.

He says that writing articles, speaking at conferences and developing a really great web site have been the
most effective tools in developing a profile for his business.

Develop a Specialisation

Terceiro says one of the best ways to develop a sole practice law firm is to find a specialisation. As a former employee of the ACCC, Terceiro was able to position himself as a specialist trade practices lawyer, which he says is much more sensible than working as a generalist.

“You can command much better rates as a specialist than as a generalist lawyer; as a generalist you tend to get stuck doing work that’s not very profitable, such as conveyancing and small criminal matters”, he says.

To develop a specialisation, Terceiro says you have to be able to prove to clients you have insights and expertise in a particular area. Says Terceiro, “For some areas, proving a specialisation is easy. For example, the Law Society of New South Wales runs accredited specialist courses in areas like family law”. Obtaining such a qualification clearly demonstrates a specialisation.

“But for areas like trade practices law, it can be difficult to have your specialisation acknowledged unless you can demonstrate your experiences through your own case history”, he says.

Terceiro has been able to do this, but also puts considerable effort into demonstrating his specialisation in other ways. For example, he runs a blog http://competitionandconsumerprotectionlaw.blogspot.com, where he writes about current trade practices issues.

Terceiro says that although it can be tempting to take on work outside your specialisation, especially when the practice is in its early days, following this path is a mistake.

“You can’t call yourself a specialist if you take on other work. You will get approached to do other work, but you have to turn it away of you want to call yourself a specialist, which can be painful”, he says.

The Right Support

The advent of the Internet made working as a sole practice lawyer so much easier. Terceiro says he can run his business largely by himself, drawing on the online resources of the Law Society and the online legal database of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII).

“You do have to have an unrestricted practicing certificate to be able to practice as a sole lawyer”, says Terceiro, who adds that the Law Society accredits courses that qualify lawyers for the practicing certificate. Terceiro says this course was invaluable when he was establishing his own practice.

“The FMRC Legal course I did teaches you things like how to develop a business plan, how to set up the business and most importantly how to work out your costs so that your business will be profitable. The Law Society also provides information on best practice software and accounting packages for small law firms; they offer a super service”, he says.

Terceiro works from home, and says that if he needs to meet clients, he goes to their offices or meets them at a coffee shop. Business Enterprise Centres also hire out offices and meeting rooms at reasonable rates.

Benefits

Above all, Terceiro’s clients benefit from having access to a senior lawyer for less than the cost of a partner at a major law firm — a huge selling point for his business. Cost is the biggest advantage of operating as a one-man band, says Terceiro.

“Big firms can be inefficient because, often, a partner will take instructions, then delegate the work to a junior, who does the work. [It] is then checked by the partner and sent to the client. It’s double handling. But as a sole lawyer, I’m the one taking the instructions and doing the work, which is a huge cost benefit to the client”, he says.

The other benefit Terceiro offers is a personal touch, a key point of difference in a business environment in which many large law firms have had redundancies. With Terceiro, clients know that when they ring up, he’ll be familiar with their situation and will be willing and able to do the work, unlike in the large law firms. It’s an approach that has stood him in good stead so far in business, and one he intends to follow in the foreseeable future.