The average personal injury attorney’s salary in the U.S. is between $73,395 and $99,587. Even though the law firm where you work may provide all you require, you may be considering it is time to go on and establish something of your own. While you consider starting your own firm, it is important to understand that owning a personal injury law firm is very different from becoming an attorney because it may require a lot of extra work and capital that might interrupt your current cash flow while adapting to your new business practices.
If you have decided to start your own personal injury practice after years of practicing law, the following 8 tips will help you focus on the factors that matter most to a personal injury law firm’s success.
1 – Create a solid business plan
Running a successful personal injury law firm requires a high level of business acumen. This is why creating a business plan — and not simply a “mental” strategy, is important. Considerations like laying down your business’s growth and revenue targets, marketing channels, technological plan, and other specifics on paper are critical, especially in the early months of starting your law firm.
2 – Anticipate expenses
Your personal injury law firm budget will make or break it, so knowing what you can anticipate having come in and going out, is critical.
If you’re starting a law firm with a few current clients, estimate how much money you’ll make from them in the first year, plus a realistic level of month-over-month revenue increase.
Anticipating expenses may be simpler than estimating income in your early months on your own. Consider creating a budget that includes realistic pay for yourself and any staff you want to recruit, legal technology fees, office space, and outsourced charges, and try to keep things as tight as possible in the first two years.
3 – Focus on obtaining clients
Every personal injury attorney knows that it is imperative to be ethical when it comes to obtaining clients, which involves adhering to your state’s attorney ethics laws and preventing conflicts of interest.
Even if you are bound by a non-compete or non-disclosure agreement, in which you must exercise extreme caution, there are a number of alternative ways when you are ready to obtain new clients for your startup law firm.
Consider networking as a method of obtaining clients and talking to other lawyers who may be able to suggest clients to you when they have a lot of cases.
You may also seek community initiatives to be involved in. As your profile grows, you will be able to cultivate your clientele.
4 – Use legal technologies
Depositions and court appearances mark personal injury lawsuits. That implies you’ll have a lot of paperwork to deal with.
The good news is that you can arrange your cases and the information you’ll need for litigation with case management software. You’ll also be able to prevent overscheduling.
Case management software saves you money on labor because you won’t have to pay someone to deal with a large number of papers coming in and many providers offer it. It would help if you looked for one that permits you to receive more for less money.
It’s also a good idea to invest in software that can also assist you with your accounting demands. You can add accounting capabilities to case management software. Accounting software, once again, saves you time and money on bookkeeping. You’ll also keep track of your expenditures and evaluate your costs.
5 – Maintain a well-defined organizational structure
When you’re just starting, you want to save expenses anywhere you can, and one way to achieve so is to hire an efficient workforce.
To help you save, consider making a detailed job description for each team member and ensure their responsibilities don’t overlap. Duplicated work functions will cost you extra money, and you will keep people on your team that you don’t need.
Since labor can quickly deplete your finances in your new law firm, you must find strategies to limit it to a minimum. Before starting your legal practice, creating an organizational structure is a good idea.
6 – Know your numbers
For many personal injury lawyers, numbers aren’t enough. However, you must know your numbers because law firms are about spending, profits, income, and losses to determine how well your law firm is doing.
Certain non-negotiables must be considered while running a legal business. These expenses can be divided into two categories: advertising and operations expenses. Analyze the conversion rate and cost per acquired case when it comes to advertising.
7 – Honesty is required
Honesty is a quality that will nearly always earn your clients’ confidence. Lawyers, unfortunately, have a terrible reputation for being dishonest. While you may not be able to influence the public’s opinion of attorneys, you can change the perception of one individual at a time by being honest and transparent in your interactions with them.
To win over a client, for example, avoid exaggerating probable outcomes. Instead, convey the facts by accurately appraising a situation and providing appropriate advice to your clients.
Also, be transparent about your prices and make sure that all fees are laid out on the table to prevent making your clients feel cheated afterward.
8 – Get capital with law firm funding
Even the most established personal injury law businesses must deal with a high degree of cash flow uncertainty. These businesses, on average, wait years to get their contingency fees on successful cases while suffering losses on unsuccessful ones.
Meanwhile, they must weigh high overhead expenditures, such as salaries and wages, rent, marketing, and other costs, to keep the flow of clients coming in.
These are the thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars that law firms must spend to progress each client’s case, which may easily amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars in disbursement investments.
While waiting for an official settlement via the court system, personal injury law firm financing offers capital to both personal injury lawyers and individuals involved in personal injury claims.
Litigation can take months or years to complete, and injured plaintiffs and even law firm owners (working on contingent fees) may become financially burdened because of medical bills and lost wages.
Litigation finance for attorneys from a reputable legal funding company, such as Baker Street Funding, assists in covering costs before cases are resolved. If you need funding to operate your law firm successfully, contact Baker Street Funding to find out if you qualify for law firm financing today.
