How to Start a Legal Practice
Practical coaching course for lawyers ready to start and grow their own legal practices.
This course includes
- 8 hours on demand videos with PowerPoint presentations
- Quizzes following each module
- Bonus materials following each module
- Certificate of completion
Who should attend
- Qualified lawyers eligible and wanting to start their own legal practices, including attorneys, advocates and legal consultants.
- Lawyers who already started their own legal practices, but who are still in start-up mode.
- Legal practice owners who started their legal practices within the last 3 years and are struggling.
Objectives and proposed outcomes
- This online coaching course provides all the tools a lawyer needs to start a successful legal practice.
- To develop self-awareness about your mindset to become a legal practice owner
- To assess your readiness to become your own boss and a legal practice owner
- To improve your confidence and self-talk as lawyer
- To provide a step-by-step guide how to start a new legal practice
- To help you draft a simple budget
- To help you decide on appointment of people and technologies
- To guide you on how to start with a healthy firm culture
- To teach you how to get new clients
- To teach you how to draft a marketing plan
- To help you explore the opportunities and risks
- To get direction, set goals and create plans
- To motivate you and get you going
Who is the creator and presenter of this coaching course?
Emmie de Kock is a qualified attorney, former law firm owner and experienced business coach to lawyers. To read more about her credentials and background, click here.
Why is it called a “coaching course” and not a “training course” per se?
A training course usually contains the same prescribed content for all students and focuses on the increase or transfer of specific knowledge and/or development or improvement of specific skills or behaviours. Tests following a training course generally also requires the same answer sheets.
This is a coaching course, because this course will go beyond training, as it will:
- teach you valuable developmental/coaching tools and how to apply them;
- maximise your own potential; and
- guide you to develop your own content to start and operate your own legal practice.
This coaching course not only aims to include step by step training on how to plan to start a legal practice, but also to provide you with structured support to take real action to develop and start your own legal practice within a certain timeframe which you determine.
What is the course overview and flow?
This online course has 6 Modules with the following titles:
- Becoming a legal practice owner
- Developing your legal practice
- Dreams, goals and realities
- Policies, people and procedures
- Marketing and securing clients
- Ready, steady, go!
Each Module comprises:
- An on-demand video with PowerPoint presentation, divided into 3 or 4 lessons
- An online Quiz
- Bonus Material
You are welcome to do the course at your own pace and as your workload allows. To give you a benchmark, when this course is presented as live sessions, it usually takes 6 weeks to complete, covering one Module per week. It is not recommended to “binge” this course, as it is recommended to allow time to reflect on content and attend to necessary actions between sessions.
What is the content of the course?
Module 1: Becoming a legal practice owner
Module 1 introduces us to the coaching terrain to be covered in this course. We compare starting a new legal practice with starting a new exciting journey. The lawyer is our driver who decides what vehicle to drive, against what pace and where we will be going. Starting to go solo, especially if you are used to being an employee, will require changes. The SCARF neuro-leadership model helps us to self-assess, adjust our mindset and motivate ourselves.
- Lesson 1: Roadmap for our journey
- Lesson 2: The vehicle and the driver
- Lesson 3: SCARF motivation tool
- Lesson 4: How to motivate yourself
- Quiz
- Bonus material
Module 2: Developing your legal practice
Module 2 makes us aware of the external environment to which the driver and the vehicle must be matched. We use the PESTEL tool to explore opportunities and risks. By using a simple value chain developed specifically for new small legal practices, we learn that a vehicle has different parts and that it becomes easy to build your vehicle if you focus on developing one part at a time.
- Lesson 1: Choosing your vehicle
- Lesson 2: Exploring the landscape
- Lesson 3: Building your vehicle
- Quiz
- Bonus material
Module 3: Dreams, goals and realities
To start and build a successful and sustainable new legal practice, you have to dream, set goals and make a plan. In doing so, it is important to apply the Disney-model to make the best plan. Money pose certain realities and drafting a budget helps create clarity and refine decisions.
- Lesson 1: Why many legal practices fail
- Lesson 2: Committing to your destination
- Lesson 3: How to make your best plan
- Lesson 4: The reality of money
- Quiz
- Bonus material
Module 4: Policies, people and procedures
If your legal practice can be compared to a vehicle, the policies, people and procedures can be compared to the engine. Without the engine, the vehicle will struggle to start and you may often feel that you have to push it! Having clear values and policies will help lead people and manage your clients. Technology can assist with streamlining and automating procedures and support services. Each driver must decide on the balance between people and technologies to ensure a smooth ride.
- Lesson 1: Where are we now?
- Lesson 2: Policies and values
- Lesson 3: Internal vs external people
- Lesson 4: Systems and procedures
- Quiz
- Bonus material
Module 5: Marketing and securing clients
If starting a new legal practice is like going on a journey, marketing is the process of sharing invitations with possible passengers. Marketing comprises various strategies to share your message to preferred passengers. Module 5 teaches how to set a marketing goal, how to draft a marketing plan and steps to follow to secure new clients.
- Lesson 1: What is marketing?
- Lesson 2: Setting your marketing goal
- Lesson 3: How to secure new clients
- Lesson 4: Creating your marketing plan
- Quiz
- Bonus material
Module 6: Ready, steady, go!
Module 6 provides a helpful short summary of the course and tools shared.
Certificate of Completion
After completing this course, you will be issued a Certificate of Completion to celebrate you doing the work to start-up your legal practice in the best way.
Consider printing and framing it and looking at it regularly when you feel stuck. May this Certificate be a visual and tangible reminder that you are ready, resourceful and have all the potential required to succeed and do well.
Despite the Certificate, the real reward after this course is that your tank will be full and you will be ready to start moving forward faster.
Let’s go!