Questioning Conventional Wisdom

This article was recently published in the January/February 2026 edition of Experience Magazine, a publication of the American Bar Association.

Questioning Conventional Wisdom

Curiosity as a Career Compass

I have practiced for 43 years, evolving through different practice areas. Whenever I’d embark on a new direction, I’d think about the best ways to do it. As much as I’ve been a curious contrarian, I always wanted to know what the prevailing wisdom was. I’d use what was useful and question the rest. When I had ideas, if they made sense to me, I tried them.

A Curious Beginning: Starting Out on My Own

When I was in law school (1980 in Austin, Texas), I worked part-time at a small firm. I loved it there and particularly admired the owner because not only was he a great lawyer, he was enthusiastic and well-versed in a variety of legal areas. I also saw that the business of law practice was a whole other skill set, at which he also excelled. There were three associates who worked collaboratively with each other, the owner, and the two law school clerks. I probably could have worked there as a lawyer if I were going to stay in Austin, but I wanted to live and work back home in New York City.

Back at home, jobs were scarce, and an idea began to gnaw at me: Could I start my own law practice? As I thought about this and began asking around, I was essentially told, “This is not a good idea, and it’s kind of crazy”. I listened and understood the concerns, but wasn’t satisfied. A law school placement advisor told me about a book, “How to Go Directly Into Solo Law Practice, Without Missing a Meal” by Gerald Singer, an attorney in Beverly Hills.

I read the book and thought, “His approach can work”. Not only that, I KNEW it would work even better in New York City.

So, I started my practice with an idea arising out of curiosity. Could this be done? What would it take?

How I Did It

The short version of Mr. Singer’s plan was to find a “space for services” arrangement in a law suite, get assignments from the other lawyers, keep asking for lawyer-to-lawyer work until you’re busy, then do some basic client marketing and don’t look back.

I found a great situation in a building in Lower Manhattan. It was within walking distance of many courts. The suite landlord charged me $100/month in exchange for 10 hours of work per week. He also gave me some cases to work on for a 50/50 split. Most importantly, he introduced me to his five lawyer tenants, all busy solos. I was busy right away with assignments and referrals from those lawyers. Many assignments sent me to the New York City Housing Court, two blocks from the office. The lawyers taught me Landlord/Tenant law and procedures. While in Court on their assignments, I paid attention and asked questions of other lawyers if they were receptive, which most were.

After a few months, I thought I could handle Landlord/Tenant cases directly from clients. The ball was in my court, but what to do? I wanted to do some marketing, but wasn’t sure how.

The Yellow Pages Experiment: Finding Clients My Own Way

In 1982, the standard marketing advice was “build your practice by word of mouth” and “get on bar association referral panels.” I did a bit of that and got a few small matters. At that time, advertising was generally frowned upon by other attorneys and bar associations. After all, up until 1976 (Bates v. Arizona), advertising wasn’t allowed at all. One place I saw a few lawyer ads was in The Yellow Pages, which was in every home and office in New York City. It struck me that tenants being sued in Housing Court might hire a lawyer located through the Yellow Pages.

Turning Curiosity Into Action

After considering this and jotting down a few notes, I called the Yellow Pages. The sales rep said I could be listed under “Lawyers,” where I could also be listed in some specialized subsections. It was $12/month with a one-year commitment. I was down for that and was listed in the Manhattan Yellow Pages under “Landlord/Tenant attorneys”. There were a few other attorneys listed there, but not many.

While I realized most people probably wouldn’t look for a lawyer this way, it would only take a small percentage of a large number (people who had the Manhattan Yellow Pages) who WOULD find a lawyer in the Yellow Pages, to make the ad profitable.

I got calls every day! I did not anticipate that a good number of my calls would be from Landlords. These paid better than the tenant cases and led to many clients who had other legal needs. During my first few years in practice, I tinkered with other Yellow Pages approaches. I hit a home run when I started listing “co-op and condo closings”, except I listed them under “Landlord/Tenant”, as opposed to “real estate”, like all the other lawyers. I figured that many people buying an apartment from their Landlord (which was a significant trend at the time) would think this was a landlord-tenant case. I got so many calls from that listing, the next year I did it again and added Queens, where I had relocated my office. I evolved into a busy real estate practice with the ad as the foundation.

Over time, and as I evolved into different practice areas, I continued to go from curiosity to action, even when I was the only one doing things that way.

When Curiosity Meets Persistence: Learning From the Bar Journal Ads

In the early ‘90s, I wanted to venture into personal injury law. I had a few cases through my general practice and some possible referral sources, but I wanted to bring in some volume. By that point, advertising was more acceptable, especially for personal injury. Big Yellow Pages listings or TV ads were way out of my price range, but I had an idea for a new source, which was:

Placing ads in out-of-state Bar Journals.

I got this idea after seeing a few Florida lawyers posting ads in the New York Law Journal. I was curious whether any New York lawyers were doing this in other States, where they were doing it, and how much it cost.

Sometimes it takes a little grunt work to find things out. I had my law student clerk send away for the Bar Journals for all 50 States, plus DC and Puerto Rico. This was pre-Internet, so it was all via letters. We had a huge stack of monthly bar journals. They were interesting to review on many levels, but we got the info we needed. Most were published 8-10 times per year. All had classified ads for attorneys and expert services. A basic ad would cost anywhere from $25 - $75 per month.

I decided not to pursue Florida or New Jersey because some well-known firms were already there, and the ads there were expensive. I decided to pick five States and give it a try for six months. This would come to approximately $250/month for six months, for a marketing budget of $1500.

I placed the following ad: “New York attorney available for referrals on personal injury cases in NYC and vicinity”, followed by my name and phone #. That was it.

I placed the ad in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas, and California.

I got a few calls from Connecticut, Illinois, Texas, and California. These amounted to nothing, and I stopped those ads after three months.

Five States, One Jackpot

However, the $42/month Pennsylvania ad was a bonanza! The first week it was in, a lawyer from Pittsburgh called and said he had a client who was visiting New York and was hit by a car in Brooklyn. It turned out to be a pedestrian knockdown with a $100K policy, which I settled for $90K without putting it in suit. The referring lawyer didn’t want a referral fee, so I made $30K, enough to pay for the ad for the next 68 years.

Then, I got a call from a lawyer based in Philadelphia. He was a personal injury attorney, but his big thing was helping other lawyers advertise on cable TV, a relatively new phenomenon at that time. He placed a lot of personal injury ads on TBS out of Atlanta. Early in the world of cable, TBS came with the standard package everywhere. He was getting a lot of NYC calls, particularly from the Bronx. He asked if I was interested in receiving these referrals. My response was “yes, as long as I can reject situations that are not viable”. He understood this and was fine with it. He never questioned or criticized when I turned something down.

Most of the inquiries were either rejected or soft tissue cases (though those often did have value), but I also got quite a few referrals on some darn good cases. While I also made some other marketing moves to grow my personal injury practice, the Pennsylvania Bar Journal ad really jolted things, and in a strange way, having it work so well was very gratifying.

Adapting to a New Era: Writing For My Own Website

Quite a bit later (early 2000s), I wanted to work in a new area of law, probate and estate administration. I knew the basics through general practice and thought it was a good fit for me. As an aside, I taught myself how to do this work by taking CLE classes and asking tons of questions when I was in Court. I also began getting appointed as a Guardian ad Litem, which happened after speaking with the Surrogate at a bar association Christmas party. Those appointments got me into cases with top lawyers, where I learned tons and became known in the Surrogate’s Court community.

I was pretty sure I could get a lot of business if I “had a good website”.

I thought potential clients in a “somebody died” situation would search on Google, and I could figure out how to be the lawyer they’d find. I spent an afternoon putting myself in clients’ situations and did search after search. I looked over the websites and tried to figure out what the other lawyers were thinking and doing. And, how could I do it better?

Questioning the Experts

I’d been getting calls from reps from various big companies, seeking to make an appointment to “talk about setting up your website”. I let a Findlaw rep show me the various plans, designs, and proposals. He talked about SEO and related topics. He explained that once I told them what my firm did and the types of clients I wanted, their writers would write all the copy for the site. From looking at many websites and speaking with the rep, it seemed like the prevailing approach was to identify various problems and drive the potential client to contact the lawyer. Pretty standard fare.

Two things about this approach bothered me. There was very little substantive information on the sites, implying that “if you want to know ANYTHING, call me”. Also, the copy was generally written to enhance SEO. I would regularly see other lawyers’ websites where I would not want a potential client to think that I wrote that way. Looking back, this doesn’t make much sense, but I felt strongly about it and told the Findlaw rep, “I want to write my own copy because I don’t want ‘SEO speak’ writing on my site AND I want to provide a lot of information on the site, which I will write.”

He expressed some concern about SEO and “well-known marketing trends” and that their writers are professionals at this, etc. He was sincere and wanted to make the sale, but he also wanted me to succeed (and expand my site over time). He didn’t resist my writing ideas much, so I got my first website for $300/month for a year. At a $3600 commitment, I figured I’d need one case to break even. The first week the site went live, I was retained on two matters and began receiving a steady stream of inquiries and new matters.

Writing in My Own Voice

I wrote the copy myself, talking about different probate scenarios. In my own way, I seeded the site for SEO. For example, I had a lot of matters involving the Public Administrator, an official in each New York County whose office becomes the fiduciary when nobody else is in a legal position to do it. This happens often, and they are involved in lots of cases. I wrote sections on the website about the Public Administrator and what they do. Many of my calls involved people who had been served with papers by the Public Administrator.

I found that when people called, they generally had a decent understanding of the situation because they’d just read about it. People often told me they liked the tone and approach of the website.

From those Public Administrator inquiries, I learned about an area of law that I knew nothing about, kinship cases, which are distant relative inheritance situations, usually cousins. I liked these cases because they were interesting, there were generally large fees, and they could often be done on a contingency. I taught myself how to do them and then started writing on the website about “cousin cases” and “cousin cases involving the Public Administrator”. When people searched for information about these issues, usually after being served with a Citation from the Public Administrator, I was coming up on page one. Kinship cases became the mainstay of my practice for many years. I’m winding it down now and finishing off a few kinship cases.

When You Do Things, Things Happen

I have some ideas for my next phases of life after law practice. I’ll maintain my approach and try things because “When you do things…things happen, often unexpected and usually good things”

I’ll incorporate some prevailing wisdom, but my path will emerge from within.

I don’t know any other way.