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Business Plans

Coolest Business Plan /Brainstorm Tool Ever!

December 5, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

For those who are regular readers, you know that I don’t believe in business plans. In my own case, when I started my firm, even my best predictions suggested that I’d go belly up in three months and had I memorialized my reality in a business plan, I’d never have had the nerve to launch. [...]

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A Departing Solo’s Post-Mortem on the Practice That Didn’t Cross the Finish Line (Part I)

August 21, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Editor’s Note: Sometimes solo practice doesn’t work out.  Recently, a member of one of my listserves shared one of the best and most objective post-mortem analyses of a solo practice that didn’t quite make it to the finish line.  Despite increasing momentum towards the end of the second year, the author (who has a family [...]

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Companion Post to the Solo Practice That Didn’t Finish (Part II): The Marketing Plan That Started to Work

August 21, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

Editor’s Note:  In the previous post, the solo lawyer who is transitioning out of his practice mentioned that his online marketing efforts were starting to bear fruit.  In this post, there’s a description of the activities that started the turn-around.  Don’t get the wrong idea – online marketing isn’t a silver bullet since if you [...]

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Burn That Business Plan, Baby

August 3, 2012 by Carolyn Elefant

So what’s the newest start-up trend?  Doing it on the fly.  That’s the conclusion reached by Anthony Tjan as part of the research he’s preparing for a book on successful small businesses, recently reported by Forbes.  According to Tjan: One of our most striking findings was that of the entrepreneurs we surveyed who had a [...]

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Back of the Napkin Business Plan for Starting a Law Firm

June 18, 2010 by Carolyn Elefant

Starting a law firm can be daunting.  Checklists and Mind Maps and planning resources outline the tasks involved, but the minutia can overwhelm.  For some, the planning process gives rise to analysis-paralysis, as the quest for a perfect launch delays launching at all.  And for those who come to solo practice as a last resort, [...]

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By Price Alone?

March 22, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

There’s been some discussion on some of the listserves that I frequent about the Brodsky Law Firm which competes, proudly and flagrantly, on price alone.  Predictably, Brodsky’s strategy has generated a slew of remarks like “you get what you pay for” or comments critical of this “race to the bottom,” but I see things a [...]

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Mission Possible

February 8, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Allison Shields has a great article about the importance of mission statements in the February 2006 issue of GP Solo.  Allison explains why you should have a mission statement and sets out steps on how to write one.  She adds that everything you do in your practice must be based on and measured against the [...]

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Guest Post: LLC As A Business Structure for Shinglers

January 16, 2006 by Carolyn Elefant

Fellow shingler Frank Yunes (www.yunes.org), a trusts and estates attorney from Lexington, MA has an idea for a New Year’s Resolution [which I have not been timely in posting - CE] Frank writes: I just finished the process of forming a single-member LLC for my law firm. I wonder how many of us out there [...]

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