Skipping the Partner Track for a Shingle of One’s Own, New York Times- Business Day: Small Business/November 23, 2011, Eilene Zimmerman

Jeecole Perkins

Skipping the Partner Track for a Shingle of One’s Own, New York Times- Business Day: Small Business/November 23, 2011, Eilene Zimmerman

Many lawyers in their mid-twenties to early-forties have left their jobs at large law firms to start their own smaller firms. After a rough start, these new firms have become very profitable. In 2006, New York City commercial litigation lawyers Sari Gabay-Rafiy and Anne Marie Bowler left their jobs at Proskauer Rose to start their own law firm named Gabay-Rafiy and Bowler. After a rough year and revising their business practices, the women decided to move to a smaller office and stop storing files offsite. Because of this, they had saved thirty-five percent on rent and three hundred dollars a month. Some like Michael Yim and Jane Chuang of Yim and Chuang had to reinvent their marketing plan before making a profit. Others like Kauth, Pomeroy, Peck, and Bailey have a client-friendly billing system.

This article deals with legal office management by lawyers of small fledging law firms acting as their own managing partners. Since there are only a few lawyers and probably one assistant, either one or all of the lawyers in the small firm must make the administrative decisions regarding how the firm should be run in order to make a profit. In a situation such as this, all the lawyers involved must share in the managing partner duties because there might not be any money for the firm to hire someone to do the job.