How to Start a Legal Practice

Something that you are going to want to take into consideration is that there is an awful lot of competition out there. At any given time, there is going to be many more students learning about the law then there are people who are practicing it. Because of this you need to make sure that you not only know the law inside and out but that you have also gained incredible business skills as well. If you conduct business in the right manner you should have no problem getting enough clients to start out with.

The first thing that you need to focus on is law school. You need to make sure that you are not just focusing on getting good grades, but also earning some money as well. It is important to pay off as much of your student loan debt as possible while you are still in school. While in school you are not required to make monthly payments, which means this is the perfect time to get ahead. Since things with your law firm business may be a little slow at first, you want to make sure that you are not strapped with an obscene amount of student loan debt.


As soon as you can, once you pass the bar exam, you will need to make sure that you go to work for a law firm. This will allow you to make business contacts, gain first-hand experience, and earn money to pay off some more of your student debt. While you do not have to be completely debt free when you apply for a loan to start your own business, the less you owe the better your chances will be at being approved for the loan.

Once you are getting close to being ready to open your own law firm you will want to begin looking for clients. You need to make sure that you are not stealing clients from your current employer though. Not only is this immoral, but you will make enemies this way. Also, you could very well face a law suit for stealing their business due to a non-compete agreement that most law firms have for the protection of their business.

You will also need to make sure that you are looking for some office space that is suitable for your business. Do not go over the top, but try to think about the future and where your law firm business will be in the next few years. You can purchase this space for your business or you can find a place that you can lease. Again, you want to be careful that you are not going with an office space that is over the top as you may not be able to keep up with the payments on it.

Once you feel that you have the right space and that you have enough clients to get started you can go ahead and start running your own law office. Make sure that you have everything set so that your first year will be able to run smoothly without too many worries about expenses. It will take a few years, but you will eventually have so much on your plate that you will not know what to do with it. You can then start to bring other attorneys into your law firm to help handle the workload. Even though it will be a little bit of a struggle it is certainly worth it in the end. All of the late nights and seven-day work weeks will pay off in the end.