When I decided to open my own law firm, I did so with the firm belief that I could not fail.  I figured that if I put up a Yellow Pages ad people would find me.

Did I mention I was 24 years old and working Manhattan?

Yeah, not so smart.

It didn’t take me too long before I realized I had no earthly clue about law firm marketing.

If this happened today I would just jump online, find myself some cool legal marketing blogs (that’s a gratuitous link to my free 5-part course, by the way) and start jotting down notes.  There are lots of places to learn this stuff.

As it so happens, the Interwebs weren’t quite so well established back in 1995.  So I cracked open the phone book and the newspapers to see what everyone else was doing.  I watched endless amounts of television and listened to the radio (all in the name of market research, I assure you) so I could see what the competition was doing.

In the end, I fell flat on my face.  Spent an obscene amount of money just to make a go of it.

I followed my instincts.  And, it turns out, I would do the same thing if I were a newbie lawyer now (unless I read this post).

But now I’m going to issue you a warning – one you really want to take to heart.

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