I have a theory about growing your bankruptcy practice: as long as you take on only the most straightforward cases, growing your practice becomes more a matter of marketing than lawyering.
You and every bankruptcy lawyer around you are competing for the same cases: the simple, the certain, the routine cases with fees tightly packed in a narrow range.
Given the referrals currently I’m getting, I seem to be downstream from lawyers who
- don’t do the means test;
- don’t do Chapter 13;
- don’t do cases involving a small business; or
- who don’t bring actions to enforce the stay or the discharge.
The list goes on.
Take advantage of the self imposed limits of your competition. Get an outsized share of the bankruptcy business by developing a comfort-level with the non-routine.
Find a focus
Grow your practice by finding a niche. Over the course of my career, I found I had a particular interest in places where other areas of law intersected with bankruptcy: for me, it was family law and small business.
Interesting things happen where state law meets bankruptcy law.
Consider, too, situations where individuals desperately needed help, like tax. While I have little actual interest in tax, writ large, the discharge of taxes in bankruptcy is an issue that impacts a large swathe of prospective clients. The applicable rules are reasonably straightforward and powerful. Get your arms around those rules and the universe of prospects expands.
A practice multiplier is that each of those areas has a community of other professionals who serve those individuals, in good times and bad. Nothing beats being the go-to bankruptcy lawyer for a family lawyer or an accounting firm.
Opportunities lurk in the ordinary
Expand your skill set in the more common issues in bankruptcy cases: defending relief from stay; using FRBP. 2004 for discovery; avoiding liens impairing exemptions. The last time there was a rash of refinancing when debtors with discharges found pre-petition liens that could have been avoided, I got a rash of clients, reopening cases to avoid those liens. Simple work, motivated clients, billable by the hour.
Take on means test challenges. It appears to me that a gaggle of attorneys turn away every client who is over median income or mindlessly dump those folks into Chapter 13. Which confounds me, because the self-same calculations appear in the Chapter 13 disposable income analysis. And makes me fear that those clients are overpaying in 13.
I recognize that my readers may be far less likely to fall into the category of complacent bankruptcy attorneys that I’m describing. If you have the skill sets I’m promoting, make yourself available to mentor those attorneys seeking to grow.
Means test issues are often ripe for advocacy because of the limited amount of binding appellate authority. Projected expenses swell when you really dig into health needs for example, or support provided to family member. A little sweat on your part yields dividends for the client (or rather, less disposable income.)
There’s a crying need for bankrutpcy attorney willing and able to tackle mortgage accounting issues. For the client, the return on an investment in your expertise on the subject is of primary importance because it involves their home.
Sharpen your tools
So, how do you expand your range and grow your bankruptcy practice?
Take on a case involving an issue you’d like to become facile with. Budget the time to do the reading, the drafting, the analysis to get the client the best results possible. The first venture into a new area will not be cost effective on an hourly basis. But that work will be the foundation of future similar cases, or cases with variation on the issue.
Save your work as a resource for like cases. Develop an archive and retrieval system so you can find and review what you already know and repurpose prior work. My archive practices are sketchy and, as a result, my partner and I spend an inordinate amount of time, standing in doorways, asking each other, “what was the name of the case where we did X?” Don’t emulate me on that score.
Seek out a mentor with expertise on your issue. Find the webinars and gatherings that address the issue. Add what you gather to your resource base.
Make it known in your local bar that you handle such matters. You are positioning yourself for referrals from your peers involving the issues they shy away from.
Cozy up to other professionals. Cultivate family lawyers & accountants. Make yourself a resource for brainstorming with other professionals; treat their referrals well; say thank you (blow them away with a handwritten thank you). Send a letter of introduction to every tax preparer who signs the tax return we collect from every client.
Get paid for your better work
Get comfortable with the fact that an expanded skill set is worth more than run-of-the-mill petition preparation. If you don’t believe it, you can’t sell it to the client.
Update your value-of-money mental software: when I was a kid, a loaf of WonderBread was 10 cents. Remember that it’s now $1.83, on average. Where I practice, it’s more likely $5.
When you need a pep talk on the subject of the value of your work, read a couple of Chapter 11 fee applications and see what those guys get. Most of us in the consumer bar would be delighted with an hourly rate 50% of what tall building lawyers command. Be prepared to lay out for the client the return to them of your more expansive services.
Do fee apps to support your expanded skill set. Figure out the ins and outs of your local no-look fee rules. Opt out of the no look fee if required by local practice.
Use your fee application to tell the client story and the results of your work to a judge who probably never represented real live people. A better understanding of what we do, outside of the courtroom, lays the groundwork for higher no-look fees and a greater willingness to approve fees consistent with the skills we bring to bear.
Opportunity awaits
The greying of the bankruptcy bar presents opportunity for the next generation of bankruptcy lawyers. Take action to step into the shoes of the better lawyers in your community, for your own benefit and the benefit of the debtor community.
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