Solo Contendere

By Michael Kemp

Welcome  to Solo Contendere; Minnesota’s home for solo and small firm practitioners to discuss the legal issues facing SmallLaw (TM?) attorneys. Many of this blog’s writers will be people who have worked in small or solo law practices for years, and who speak with the advantage of experience. They are people who can teach the lessons they have learned from years or decades in the practice, and will share their insight with the rest of the community.

I will not be one of those people.

As a 2009 law school graduate, I am one of a rising number of new graduates who, either from desire or simply by process of elimination, have decided to strike out on our own. Yet whether the small firm practitioner has been in practice two years or twenty, many of the same issues face us all. Of those issues, perhaps the most difficult to overcome is the lack of a support system.

No matter how experienced you are or how narrowly you limit your practice area, you will be faced with unfamiliar problems. It is likely that someone out there has faced the same problem, successfully or unsuccessfully, and would be willing to share their experiences. Perhaps you are dealing with opposing counsel who has engaged in unethical or simply unusual tactics, and you are not sure how to respond. Perhaps you are simply wondering trying to sort the business aspects of the firm, and wondering if anyone out there knows whether PayPal is better than Google Checkout. Or perhaps you have read and reread (with decreasing understanding) a particular rule, ever more convinced that the Rules of Civil Procedure were “laid out by drunken Irishmen,” and wished there was someone with experience in that area to guide you.

We hope this blog’s readers, members, and contributors will have those answers.

We intend to start a discussion. We encourage comments; we encourage you to write in with topic ideas. The idea behind this blog is not to replace the support system small firm practitioners already have in place. The idea behind this blog is rather to tighten – and therefore, to strengthen – the community of solo and small firm practitioners by adding another tool to our belt.