Why The Best Solo and Small Firm Lawyers Aren’t the Best Entrepreneurs

I disagree with this argument for two reasons.   One, when you are out on your own as a solo, your primary job is not to practice law, but to find clients so that you can practice law and be on your own.  If all you wanted to do was practice law, you would not leave whatever law-firm or legal job that you held before.  So, practicing law should not be the primary motivator for going out on your own. Indeed, as with any business, you should like but not be “in love” with your product, which may blind you to the business aspects.  

Two, I think it is naive and dangerous thinking to claim that practicing law as a solo is about “expanding access” or otherwise doing something more focused on “moral” goals or “doing good” for society.  Your only job as a solo is to get a good client, service that client well, and make money so that you can stay in practice.  Of course your job after that, as a provider for your family and simply as a human being, is to create wealth for you and your family, and otherwise contribute to the economy.  

Thus, your only “calling” is to service the client well.  Indeed, if there is any aspect of soloing that is “right” or “good”, it is the fact that larger firms will charge that client too much and won’t do as good a job as the solo.  And the flip side of your “calling” is to avoid clients that will not pay you what you deserve, no matter the “morality” of their cause.   

With due respect to the author, I think there is actually too much concern within our profession about requiring pro bono work, and too much hand-wringing about “expanded access” to the poor.  Doctors do not even perform the type of pro bono that lawyers are required to do.   There are two things that one immediately notices about the way the legal system provides pro bono work.  First, nothing is ever asked of the person receiving the free service. Second, there is a caste system where prosecutors, former judges, legal aid workers, etc. etc. for some reason are excused from having to do pro bono.  (E.g., I have never been able to figure out why someone making six figures as the “director” of a legal services organizations does not themselves have to perform pro bono hours — I would love someone to explain that.)

In sum, you are very much in a “business” if you are a solo, and your business is to find good clients and represent them well.   This helps you, the client and the world at large by creating wealth.  It also permits you to work for yourself and not be subject to the whims of the type of irrational boss we have all experienced. (It also helps you to pay less in taxes.)  And it helps the practice because you are providing a better service than bigger firms.  So, concentrate on that and forget all of the flighty (not to mention somewhat arrogant) notions of “doing good.”  Even if you could figure out which action is “good” for society as a whole (which is probably impossible), that action probably has consequences you didn’t anticipate.  

I’m glad you brought up Bill Gates, because I think he is a perfect example of what is wrong with the “do gooder” mentality.  He should have either stayed on with Microsoft and made it a better company (I have owned the stock for years and it is the biggest dog of a stock ever) or he should have started a new tech company, and gave people jobs, created wealth, etc. etc.  Instead he is out trying to “save the world.”  He doesn’t understand that you save the world by creating companies like Microsoft, not by creating yet another “foundation” so people can drive Land Rovers around Africa and pour yet more money into ineffective programs.   I wish Bill Gates had more sympathy for the elderly person whose retirement account depends on the (now dismal) profit from Microsoft.  

I think your point about “expanding access”  to law by providing services to start-ups and small companies is excellent.  Yet it just proves my point:  these are opportunities for solos to take business from the big firms and, as you say, “make a decent living.”  Yes, let’s do all of that, and take business from these big-firm lawyers — that’s a beautiful thing, b/c the big firm lawyers charge so much and do so little.  But let’s not pretend we have some altruistic, do-good purpose in doing so.  Let’s do it for the profit, and be proud we are providing for our families, and (perhaps more importantly) not working to enrich someone else.  Finally, I think the fact that lawyers who leave firms for other businesses simply proves that the law is merely another type of business — if it isn’t profitable as a business, you should leave and do something else.  There are people who close their dry-cleaning shops or plumbing companies b/c a profit cannot be made.  Certainly it does not disprove the fact that the law is a business.  All big and mid-sized firms started from small ones, after all.  

Yes, I do agree with most of these comments. I am mostly concerned when I hear people say that they started a law practice because they always wanted to run a business. These people will be disappointed because law is not the most interesting business model, and there are many regulatory hurdles. If they don’t like or love the law, they will be disappointed. Of course, you have to be a business person to run a firm. If you can’t earn enough to keep your doors open, you won’t be able to help any clients, rich or poor. But that should be fairly self-evident.