Sunday • April 9, 2006

Are you a SANE lawyer?

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Are you a SANE lawyer?

In my view, you are a SANE lawyer if you are a Self-reliant, Autonomous, Networked, Empowered lawyer.

You rely on yourSelf to make your practice a success.  You enjoy a high level of Autonomy in deciding how to make that happen. You maintain a Network of kindred spirits, fellow travelers, mentors, coaches, spiritual guides and resources, to ensure that your autonomy does not result in isolation. And you have Empowered yourself by embracing new technology, by keeping yourself healthy and by keeping your life in balance.

Most SANE lawyers are solo practitioners. That's because solo practice affords enough Autonomy to keep a lawyer SANE.  But SANE lawyers can also be found in many small law firms and in ancillary business activities, like legal technology and law practice management consulting. Indeed, many of the people who populate those industries left the ordinary practice of law in order to be SANE -- Self-reliant, Autonomous, Networked and Empowered.

The search for a new moniker

Some of my fellow blawgers don't like to be called "solo" practitioners even though that's what they are.  They don't like some of the implications that are traditionally associated with the term "solo practice," at least in the minds of some people.

They know that those implications are less valid today than ever before, because new technologies make it possible for solo attorneys to compete on a level playing field with lawyers in larger firms, and also make it possible for solo lawyers to network, collaborate, connect with expertise and obtain goods, services and resources.

They also know that now is the best time in history to be a solo entrepreneur -- in the practice of law or in any other endeavor -- because so much can be accomplished with so little capital in the flattened and connected world of the 21st century.

For all those reasons, my fellow blawgers have sensed that there is a need for a new vocabulary to describe the new breed of solo practitioners.  And so they have resorted to terms like "non-solo" as a way of communicating the idea that "solo" doesn't mean what some people may think.

But does anyone really think that the term "non-solo" does the trick?  Of course not.  It is merely a provisional remedy, a stop-gap measure, the kind of language that appears in a time of cultural transition. It tries to convey an idea by suggesting what it isn't, rather than what it is. In the process, it merely creates confusion for the uninitiated.

The unheralded benefits of high cholesterol

I found myself chewing over that "non-solo" misnomer during my breakfast this morning. I am required to fast for the rest of the day, in connection with my portrayal of Simon Peter in an Easter drama at my church tonight.  So I decided to enjoy an unusually large breakfast before beginning the fast.  Yes, I know, that's exactly the kind of behavior that makes people think of lawyers as experts in getting around the law. But I'm a big guy with a big appetite, and after all, my pastor requested only that the other eleven men and I fast for twelve hours before we undertake to portray the twelve disciples at 7:30 this evening. 

So, anyway, somewhere in the process of devouring a ham and cheese omelet, some sausage links and a side order of hash browns, I decided to put my mind to the task of labeling the new (or at least partly new) concept of solo practice that I see expressed in some posts by my friend Carolyn Elefant at My Shingle and also in some posts by my other (anonymous) friend at The Greatest American Lawyer. 

I began with a few key adjectives -- autonomous, networked and empowered.  For a while I toyed around with "Technology-Empowered"  as the beginning of an acronym like TEAM or TEAL (meaning a Technology-Empowered Autonomous Lawyer).

Finally, despite the rising level of cholesterol in my blood stream, I had a moment of clarity -- or was it sanity?  I realized that the new "ideal" of solo practice is all about being a SANE lawyer -- Self-reliant and Autonomous, but also Networked and Empowered. 

How to recognize a SANE lawyer (part one of many)

I will be writing a lot about SANE lawyers here at SoloBlawg.  But let me take a moment to flesh out the concept by referring to some posts on other blawgs in recent weeks.

Here are some things a SANE lawyer doesn't do:

• A SANE lawyer doesn't do the kind of things that Adriana Linares described in her excellent post,  "I'll have my secretary send you that document..." at her legal technology blog, I Heart Tech. That's because a SANE lawyer is Self-reliant and technologically Empowered.  There's simply no reason why a SANE lawyer would slow down the flow of information by waiting for a secretary to perform a task which the SANE lawyer can perform in several keystokes.  (Incidentally, clients love SANE lawyers because, in Adriana's words, the clients expect their lawyers to be as technologically competent as they are.)
• Likewise, a SANE lawyer doe not fail to return telephone calls promptly, or allow incoming calls to roll into a voicemail system unnecessarily. That's because a SANE lawyer is an Autonomous business owner or stake-holder who cares about the "customer experience" of clients.  But that doesn't mean that a SANE lawyer shuns voicemail altogether.  To the contrary, the SANE lawyer uses voicemail technology as a way of Empowering the lawyer and the client to communicate with each other asynchronously. The SANE lawyer knows that it is easy enough to overcome the negative side of voicemail by customizing the answering message each day, by responding to messages promptly, by setting up private voice mailboxes for particular clients -- in short, by demonstrating that the voicemail system has been deployed to facilitate communication, not to avoid it.

That's all I've got time to write just now. Stay tuned, and learn how to become a SANE lawyer if you are not one already.