Guest: Dean Blachford just hanged his solo shingle eight weeks ago. But he didn't jump into solo practice blind. Instead, he reviewed New Solo's back catalog and sought advice from host Adriana Linares.

He joins Linares to share his crash course on striking out on his own.

Five Categories of Must-Listen Episodes: 

5) Inspirations from famous people

• What New Solos can Learn from Han Solo
• New Trends in Practice Management
• Implementing the Right Processes with Ernie Svenson

4) Building a marketing plan 

• Back to Basics: Smart Marketing for New Solos – Part 1
• Back to Basics: Smart Marketing for Solos Part 2
• From Clicks to Clients: The Law Firm Marketing Funnel Explained
• CRM: Using Client Relationship Management in Your Law Firm
• CRM Value: How Lawmatics Enhances Client Experience
• Up Your Marketing Game with Newsletters

3) Planning for proper financial management

• Money Management 101 for Solo and Small Firm Professionals
• Oh, The Messes We See

2) Nailing down a collections strategy

• Marco Brown's Eight Commandments for Getting Paid

1) Best of New Solos 

• What Storms May Come: Preparing your Firm for Natural Disaster
• Decamping to Puerto Rico
• The Unorthodox Path to Becoming a Lawyer
• Client Acquisition in the 21st Century: With Instagram & TikTok??

Blachford's Tech Stack:

• Microsoft Teams for team meetings and video conferencing 
• Microsoft Word and Excel for planning and collaboration
• Hubspot for contact relationship management
• RingCentral to manage business calls
• Clio for ease of clerk and client use
• LawPay for client payment flexibility

New Insights (brought to you by Nota):

• Veteran practitioner Starlett Massey answers litigation associate Melanie Kalmanson's question:
• Question 2 of 4: "What is the most underutilized tool in litigation?"

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lawclerk, Alert Communications, Abby Connect, and Clio.

Guest: Rachel Allums took a nontraditional path to law practice, first working as a receptionist and paralegal before reading for the California Bar. She benefited from years of firm management experience, leveraging these skills when she launched her estate planning practice one year ago.

Topics:

• What it's like being a legal unicorn
• Flipping the script by learning to be a lawyer before learning to think like a lawyer
• Battling inertia to make practice management changes that benefit clients
• Launching a firm during a pandemic
• Scaling and managing an influx of clients
• Cultivating relationships through preferred provider deals
• Managing client expectations with forthright, transparent communication
• Yes, print advertising still works!

The Tech Stack:

• Clio Grow/Clio Manage for client intake and management
• Quickbooks online for bookkeeping 
• HotDocs document automation from AbacusNext 
• Lawyaw for online legal forms

New Insights (brought to you by Nota):

• Veteran practitioner Starlett Massey answers litigation associate Melanie Kalmanson's question:
• Question 1 of 4: "What made you decide to start your own firm?"

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lawclerk, Alert Communications, Abby Connect, and Clio.

Guests: Taly Goody is a personal injury lawyer, and Michelle Fonseca-Kamana exclusively practices lemon law. Both immersed themselves in social media, successfully leveraging the platforms as free marketing channels.

Topics:

• Using social media to market a practice
• Their process for creating videos
• "The Power of Planning"
• Why they use YouTube and Facebook and not LinkedIn or Twitter
• Repurposing their videos for multiple social media platforms
• What makes a good video? What makes a bad video?

Tools mentioned:

• Ring light for atmosphere
• Canva Pro for backgrounds and Instagram Reels
• InShot App to add text
• Videoleap Editor App to repurpose reels

New Insights (brought to you by Nota):

• Eric Ganci answers Robert Southwell's last question: 
• "Who are the trial attorneys you thought were most effective? And what made them a particularly good litigator in the courtroom?"

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lawclerk, Alert Communications, Abby Connect, and Clio.

Guest:

• Sarah de Diego, the founder of De Diego Law, built such a strong client base that it made location irrelevant for her practice. 

Topics:

• Building a virtual practice
• Tax advantages of moving to Puerto Rico
• How to communicate with partners and staff
• Favorite tech tools
• No website? No problem

New Insights (brought to you by Nota):

• Eric Ganci answers Robert Southwell's third question. 
• RS: "What are some suggestions you have as far as learning a little bit and educating yourself on the voir dire process for young attorneys?"

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lawclerk, Alert Communications, Abby Connect, and Clio.

When Peggy Gruenke's business CPN Legal takes on projects with lawyers to implement new accounting technology and processes, she often finds a mess to clean first.

Many firms don't have adequate finance and accounting habits or make the mistake of hiring bookkeepers without experience working with law firms. Those mistakes, if not cleared up, can put law licenses in jeopardy.

Host Adriana Linares has Gruenke walk through best practices in setting up a business, from getting an EIN to deciding whether to incorporate as an LLC or a partnership. These steps help in determining the types of law practice management and accounting systems to choose.

The two also discuss the negatives and positives of various practice management and accounting tools on the market.

And in this episode's New Insights segment, brought to you by Nota, Eric Ganci returns to answer Robert Southwell's second question - what are the must-have trial prep reference materials new attorneys should be keeping close at hand?

Previous episode referenced: Money Management 101 for Solo and Small Firm Professionals

Peggy Gruenke is co-founder of CPN Legal in Cincinnati.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lawclerk, Alert Communications, Abby Connect, and Clio.

Legal tech coach Adriana Linares unveils a new format for New Solo with a new ask-the-expert segment, pairing a veteran practitioner with a new solo.

First, Linares welcomes guest Brad Reese to review his firm's shift to a cloud-based practice management solution, from taking the plunge to dealing with serial complainers during implementation.

An associate at the firm, Reese, took on overseeing the tech transition, including evaluating options, making a selection, and following through with implementation.

As they walk through the migration steps, Linares shares tips for firms evaluating cloud-based options that work best for their needs.

And kicking off our New Insights segment, Oregon solo Robert Southwell asks veteran Southern California lawyer Eric Ganci about when to opt for a bench trial over a jury trial.

Brad Reeser is an associate of Mason, Mason, Walker & Hedrick in Newport News, Virginia.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Lawclerk, Alert Communications, and Abby Connect.

Distinguishing themselves from the field by becoming exceptionally valuable to clients in ways others can't is one way Seth Godin says lawyers can aim to build successful practices. Godin, an entrepreneur and author of 19 books, speaks with host Adriana Linares and Clio CEO Jack Newton about how lawyers can think more innovatively about marketing, positioning, and offering clients solutions.

Repeating a point he made during his Clio Cloud 2020 keynote, Godin says clients don't wake up with a billable-hour problem. They wake up with real problems. He says lawyers can better serve their businesses and their clients if they position themselves to solve those specific problems. There's no issue of scarcity, he says, noting the world is replete with problems.

The three discuss practical advice for BigLaw "refugees" who hang their shingles, from making the leap and surviving the "dip" to embracing the technology that makes client interactions run smoothly.

Jack Newton is CEO and co-founder of Clio.

Seth Godin is an entrepreneur, best-selling author, and speaker.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Clio, Lawclerk, ROSS, and Alert Communications.

Even in law school with a career track in mind, promising lawyers don't really know where they'll land. Legal Innovators Chairman Jonathan Greenblatt talks with host Adriana Linares about modern career paths and their inevitable shifts because of challenges and unexpected opportunities.

Greenblatt points out what he believes are fundamental flaws in BigLaw hiring and training junior talent and how his startup is creating alternatives for firms and corporate law departments while ensuring young lawyers from diverse backgrounds get on-the-job training.

He and Linares talk through four good habits for developing a successful career: Go where opportunity takes you, network, develop mentors, and make yourself indispensable.

Jonathan Greenblatt is a co-founder and chairman of Legal Innovators.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Clio, Lawclerk, ROSS, and Alert Communications.

From client management to website development and networking, Florida bankruptcy lawyer Kelly Roberts has intel to share fresh from her own startup experience.

Roberts tells host Adriana Linares that she often gets calls from lawyers wanting to establish a bankruptcy practice like hers. Many times they have a practice launch approach that she believes is the opposite of what it takes to be successful as a solo.

But even Roberts is starting to experience growing pains so Linares offers advice on next steps for building a team while documenting processes and procedures before making a first support staff hire.

Kelly Roberts is a bankruptcy lawyer based in Florida.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Clio, Lawclerk, ROSS, and Alert Communications.

Since the pandemic caused courthouses to close and law practice to shift almost entirely online, practically overnight, Lawclerk has seen demand spike.

The provider of on-demand virtual associates has doubled in size since the beginning of the year. That's double the number of projects, and an increase in the value of projects overall, Lawclerk's co-founder tells host Adriana Linares.

So why the growth spurt? Garman says that even though some firms were cutting back, solo and small firm practices started to focus on their most important work but needed to find a way to support their lower-priority matters. So while lawyers were spending time on their best clients and best prospects, they were sending matters more often to freelance associates through Lawclerk. [Disclosure: Lawclerk is a sponsor of the New Solo podcast.]

The pandemic created a real-time test of Lawclerk's model. It demonstrated that it could adjust to assist its core market of lawyers who need occasional associate support without creating additional business overhead.

Garman and Linares also discuss the many lessons learned and new ways co-workers are connecting. Garman notes that he now communicates with more people in a single day than he did when the team worked 40-feet from one another.

Greg Garman is co-founder of Lawclerk.

Special thanks to our sponsors, Clio, Lawclerk, ROSS, and Alert Communications.

What does a law firm's client intake process have to do with its advertising campaign? Everything.

Law firm digital marketing expert Jason Marsh won't even work with firms that don't have their intake process nailed down. That's because you can't have a successful campaign without being able to sign a client successfully.

Marsh tells host Adriana Linares that the intake process's job is to stop a potential new client from searching for another lawyer. So before small firms begin ad campaigns, it's critical to understand the entire customer journey from web click to being qualified as a lead and being signed as a paying client. Marsh and Linares discuss the client acquisition funnel and what lawyers need to know to create successful ad campaigns.

Linares pins Marsh down on the average cost of a typical solo or small firm ad campaign.

Jason Marsh is the founder of digital marketing agency MARSH8

Special thanks to our sponsors, Clio, Lawclerk, ROSS, and Alert Communications.