This Friday I will be in D.C. to take the oath of admission in the D.C. bar.
This important step means I will now be able to accept as many environmental cases as I wish, no longer being limited to 5 every 2 years by the Pro Hac Vice rule (A rule allowing an attorney licensed in another State to sue under the license of an attorney licensed in the forum State.) I am very excited about this, though trepidtious about leaving Otter and Monkey for so long. (I will be gone 5 days).
Johnny, You can do it…. says Jaime Escalante to his students at Garfield High. I hear him repeating his favorite phrase in my ear each time I try to build this thing I intend to call a practice. Practice is a good word for it, I feel as though I am in rehearsal for my professional life, instead of in it. It would feel different if I wasn’t making it up as I went along, but instead was being told what to do. Damn it, I should have just gotten a job.
This is so incredibly hard, and there is no guarantee at all that all this hard work will result in money. (Though really, I would love to have some money, it’s nice to be able to buy things, pay bills, visit family from time to time.)
I have had great success in the long term, high risk/high reward side of my business. My one environmental client will give me as much work as I can handle and then some. Of course, I only get paid for that work as part of the damages portion of a settlement or winning lawsuit, so I can’t count on that money to pay my monthly bills for at least another year. (Try telling that to your creditors, “just one more year guys and I will be all set!”)
So, to balance out my business and pay those bills I have been building a “bread and butter” side to the practice. To begin with it was children’s advocacy. I have been working with the Office of the Child’s representative (OCR) for over six months now to get added to the contract for state pay cases. This would insure a modest, but consistent income I could use to pay those pesky monthly’s while I build my environmental empire. (Yes, I am queen of the nigh extinct creatures, the polluted waters, and the wasted resources.) Things were going along great until the OCR met with a huge budget crisis in the new economy and stopped hiring new attorneys. Including me.
So… no bread and butter there.
Then I thought I could get a job working with the various legal temp agencies doing document review. It pays even less than the kids work, but it’s still good money. So down I went to interview with two very nice women who are very interested in getting me work. Unfortunately, all the clients they have who are okay with me representing my own clients in my off hours require me to work Monday through Friday, 40 hours a week. The clients they have that will work with my schedule and let me work 30 hours on a M, W, F, schedule require me to take no additional clients.
So… no bread and butter there.
I sometimes panic, thinking I was a fool to believe I could work in the law, raise my children, and earn some money. It would seem the odds are stacked against me making one out of three of those things work. Either I can take everything on speculation and have no guaranteed income (a situation my creditors dislike heartily), or I can work for pay but only full time, or I can raise my kids and work at Taco Bell (Starbucks is likely way too popular for me to even try in this economy, I am sure there are hundreds of CEO’s trying to land jobs as Barista’s.)
I have reached out to a mentor of mine for advice and help, and he is noodling on the problem, so I am hopeful. However, I could use a little you can do it these days, there are so many indications that maybe I can’t. This business is the riskiest thing I have ever done. I would like to believe it is going to take off and get me flying, but there is a inside me saying I will land, Splat, flat on my face.
along with a sea turtle, a small wild kitty, and a few other critters.
Nope, it’s not a bad bar joke, it’s the long list of new cases I agreed to take from my wonderful environmental mentor.
A few days before the interview from hell I emailed my mentor and told him I needed help figuring out how to build a practice in environmental law, as I was fairly certain I didn’t want to work outside the home. I explained I was interviewing for a position with the D.A., and was really excited about what I could learn from her, but was doubtful that it was the right time to leave the kids in so much non parental care, and was feeling incredibly anxious about working that many hours so far away.
I asked him how realistic it was to build a practice that focused on environmental law about 20 hours or so a week. I offered him pie in exchange for advice. (Homemade pie could conquer the world if used correctly). My pie got me a wonderful meal with one of my favorite people, a discussion of the various issues facing an environmental practice, and an action plan, along with 8 or 9 solid cases with different timings, and an offer to create my own work in the future and accept more work as it come down the line.
I will have to do some rainmaking, though not in the traditional sense. I will have to file some petitions (without pay) in order to set in motion some of the actions I will later be filing suit on. However, the work is solid, and my client has too much to handle on their own and few attorneys to take it on such a speculative basis. It appears I will be able to fill my platter with all sort of fun creatures. Even better, these cases have a variety of issues to them, so I will not be focusing on only one thing time and time again. I have some critical habitat issues, some recovery issues, and some listing issues to argue. One case even touches on the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which cracks me up every time I see the traffic on Downing stopped for the Canadian Geese. I will even be able to potentially pick up some Clean Water Act permitting work, which would correlate nicely with my Water Law class and open me up to a whole new area of law.
Additionally, I got a call on my private child and family investigator practice. It would appear that I may have a case coming to me that way too!
The wheels are turning and the clients are coming in! It may be possible to do this “work from home” gig after all! I have to say I like the jeans and teva crowd a lot more than the vibe I got from the interview, it’s nice to work from home in my jammies, my favorite coffee really nearby. I am blessed to have a plethora of mentors interested in guiding me and advising me, so I can call on them for issues I face with each aspect of the various legal arena’s I am operating in.
So, now I am off to finish organizing my office space, and getting ready to work in earnest. I am going to be very busy, very soon.
SavvySpoons 