Jennifer Gumbel
Jennifer Gumbel is a partner with Springer & Gumbel, P.A. in Preston, MN, a town of just over 1,500 people. She practices mainly in estate planning, real estate, business planning and municipal law and blogs on estate planning at Minnesota Estate Planning and Probate. She has also been known to see more bald eagles during her commute than cars.
Expanding your practice is something every lawyer has either successfully done or wants to do. When you determine a niche area that you are passionate about and that sets you apart and you’ve put in the time to become an expert, you are ready to market yourself. Marketing to your colleagues is a important way to grow your niche area. However, you’ll also want to market in the obvious way, directly to potential clients.
Here are tips I’ve come up with to market my expertise to potential clients, wherever they are, to expand my rural practice to global clients.
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If you’re a lawyer-parent, you’ve had to juggle sick kids and the office. You know how it works. You’re usually on a roll, whether it be working with opposing counsel on a settlement or knocking out an appellate memo and you get the dreaded phone call. It’s daycare and your kid is sick. Time to drop what you’re doing and pick them up. This week, a teething induced fever meant that I brought my daughter to work. Here’s some tips on bringing sick kids to the office.
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Expanding your practice is something every lawyer has either successfully done or wants to do. When you determine a niche area that you are passionate about and that sets you apart and you’ve put in the time to become an expert, you are ready to market yourself. You may not have clients walking in your door every day that need your expertise in your niche area, but your colleagues who don’t have that expertise may.
Here is what I’ve done to market my expertise in my niche area, international estate planning, to other attorneys in an effort to expand my rural practice to global clients.
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I recently read an article in the Atlantic, Observations from 20 Years of Iowa Life, that got my blood boiling. I won’t spend Lawyerist real estate doing a rebuttal. Besides, the nation’s snarkiest T-Shirt company (that just happens to headquarter in Des Moines) took care of that for me. But, as the resident rural blogger, allow me to debunk some of the stereotypes* this article perpetuates that prevent you from considering rural practice.
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Whether you have a rural or metro practice, most attorneys are looking to expand. In a prior Lawyerist post, I talked about how offering a unique service that you’re passionate about can help you identify a niche area to add to your law practice. Now that you’ve identified a niche area, the next step is to become the expert.
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Every practice, rural included, is always looking to expand. As technology increases the comfort that potential clients have in using email and phone calls to get needed assistance, the potential client base is no longer limited to your town or county. So how can a rural practice attract clients from outside their tradional geographic market and take advantage of ruralsourcing? In a series of posts, I’m going to share the steps that I’m taking to grow my own niche practice and add global clients to my rural practice.
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There are almost endless considerations for law officing. By far the most common office for the rural practitioner remains a brick and mortar location. But, just because rural officing may look traditional, there are still important considerations for the rural office.
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It can be tough to be a breastfeeding lawyer. Heck, you now have two jobs, being advocate and counselor and being dairy cattle. In belated, what can I say I’m a mother of an infant, honor of World Breastfeeding Week, here are some tips for the breastfeeding lawyer.
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Law school, for a spouse, can be as rough as it is on the student. Welcome to the world of living with a stressed-out, over-extended, cranky baby-lawyer. It can leave the law students and their spouses wondering if their relationship can last those three years. I was lucky enough to have a supportive partner during the process (thanks Axel!) and left law school with a JD and a marriage intact. After watching the series finale of Friday Night Lights (really one of the best shows ever, even if it is about Texas football), I realized how much marriages and partnerships going through the rocky road of law school could learn from the main couple of the show, Coach Taylor and his wife Tami. Here’s what law school spouses can learn from the Taylors (with spoilers).
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Rural practitioners aren’t necessarily known to be specialists*. In many ways, rural attorneys serve clients and their universe of legal needs. Additionally, there may not be a large enough need in your comminuty to sustain a practice in a niche area of the law. However, it’s almost impossible to have compentency in every area and you may not enjoy practicing in every area. So, how can a rural practitioner limit their practice and still keep the lights on?
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