Legal Question in Criminal Law in New York

What is the best way to get a law firm started? For example, if myself and a couple of law partners wanted to start our own business to service the criminal defense needing population in NYC to combat injustices in the criminal justice system and the NYPD's notorious "stop and frisk" policy, how would we go about attracting paying clients? Would we use advertising? Many lawyers I spoke to are using the 18b lawyer referral panel and word of mouth but if we are literally "brand new" to the business we are unable to utilize these two sources since we have no existing or former clients to spread the word about us. What kind of advertising should we consider that is good for a shoe string budget firm and are there other methods of getting clients we are failing to consider?


Asked on 7/08/12, 10:50 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Philip Katz Fink & Katz, PLLC

The biggest problem that I find new firms have is that they overextend themselves. The key to success, in my opinion, is twofold. You need to network aggressively and you need to keep your overhead low. The suite that I share with others in downtown Manhattan has helped me with both. My office is shared by roughly one dozen attorneys and we all save a bundle on office overhead and do a lot of cross referring. You should try to get into a suite like ours.

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Answered on 7/08/12, 6:36 pm


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