On Closing a Law Firm

Every lawyer should start a firm once, but not every lawyer should keep running a firm.

Dear Friends,

My first career was in computer science, working for various government contractors, private consulting companies, and nonprofit organizations in Washington. The second was in law, first as a public defender, then as counsel for a finance company, then as legal consultant to political campaigns and nonprofit organizations. Funny thing about those areas of practice; they don’t involve operating a law firm.

A couple of years back, I decided I wanted to have an actual law firm that would solicit individual clients to do criminal defense and other legal work. Getting a Clio account, opening a lawyer’s trust account, accepting referrals, the whole nine yards.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But what I learned is that I don’t like managing a law firm. At all. I hate billing, timekeeping, trust accounting, and every other aspect of the nuts and bolts necessary to make a law firm run. It takes mental overhead and time from things I like more.

So today, I’m shutting it down. Settling the bills, closing the bank accounts, canceling the subscriptions to software services, and winding down the entities.

Maybe some time in the future, I’ll find a firm that is run by someone I like that will let me join and just do the legal work for the clients, unburdened by the headaches of law firm management.

But that’s not today.

I became a lawyer to help people. Letting go of running my own firm will give me more time to work on legal problems for people.

It feels good to close my law firm.

Yours truly,

Nick

P.S. I am still doing legal work for clients on a selective basis, so if you have a problem and you think I could help, contact me at sarwark.org.