Plan Your Law Firm, Courtesy of Canva
If you’ve read my stuff, you know I’m not a fan of a formal business plan as a prerequisite to starting a law firm. For starters, in today’s fast changing world, a business plan can change even as you’re writing it. Plus, a formal plan lends itself to extensive research and analysis/paralysis which holds many lawyers back from getting started.
Still, you don’t want to start a law firm without committing any of your vision to writing. So that’s why I favor devices like the business model canvas which rolls the salient features of a traditional business plan into a one-pager. Another terrific planning tool is a pitch deck which is ordinarily used by startups to attract investors to their companies but can also be used as a device to plan how you’ll attract clients to your law firm.
After combing the Internet for usable, free version of a business model canvas or pitch deck to share, I stumbled across templates on Canva, a DIY graphics site and one of my favorite start-up tools. Below are two quick videos about the features of each template, and how I used them to start planning my new law firm. Click on the video show notes for links.