Whether you’ve always wanted to hang your own shingle or have a newfound desire to buck Big Law, if you want to launch a new law practice in 2027, there’s no time to waste. Starting now in Q3 will give you a six-month runway to launch professionally and purposefully — and sustain momentum. While not comprehensive, this law firm startup checklist outlines key marketing steps to take, month by month, so you can start strong.
Ed. Note: Be sure to read our blueprint on starting a law firm for tips on establishing strong business foundations alongside your marketing timeline.
Six-Month Law Firm Startup Checklist
JULY CHECKLIST
Know the ground rules. Before diving in, make sure you understand the various policies that apply to your situation, from your firm’s partnership agreement to your state’s Rules of Professional Conduct. Know the rules, then play by them; negative headlines, state bar actions and litigation are no way to start your new enterprise.
Write your positioning statement. Think of this exercise as drafting the Constitution of your law firm (or perhaps your Declaration of Independence, if your parting will be a contentious one). What kind of law firm are you building? Doing this early will ensure all of your marketing – from the firm name to the logo to the website — has a strategy behind it.
Harvard Business School has a helpful model for crafting your positioning statement:
- Define your audience. Who are you going to serve, and why do they need you?
- Understand your competition. What are other firms in this space doing well? Where do they fall short? Why does the market need your firm?
- Share your differentiators and a reason to believe. What makes you different? (Actually different. A lower price doesn’t count.) Explain this plainly, and prove it. If you have a superior way of doing the work, map out your process. If you are, in fact, the region’s leading practitioner in your very specific niche, build a list of matters, testimonials and accolades that support that claim.
With this homework done, put it together:
“We help [target audience] do [customer need] by [firm differentiator].”
This could look like:
- We help parents protect their families and legacies on a schedule that works for them.
- We help retail and restaurant companies expand into Tennessee, applying an unrivaled track record that spans more than 500 successful openings.
- We provide innovators an expedited way to protect their ideas through our Fast-Track Patent Process.
You don’t need a lengthy brand guide to establish the foundation of your new firm, but you do need a clear North Star.
AUGUST CHECKLIST
Make it official. What are you going to name the firm? Again, review your state’s Rules of Professional Conduct to determine any limitations, such as whether trade names are allowed or whether your state requires advance approval of your firm name.
A few other considerations:
- Think about the name from an online perspective; it’s maddening to have a brilliant name and then learn that the domain name is taken. Play with some options at Namevine, where you can simultaneously scout name availability for .com domains and social media handles.
- Keep it simple. Imagine giving your email address over the phone. “JaneDoe@Doefirm-litigation-ny.com” will annoy you and your clients, and a multitude of qualifiers and hyphens can look amateurish.
- If your perfect name is not available on a .com, consider a .law extension. It is less traditional, but often more elegant: “Doe.law” is far more professional and memorable than “Doefirm-litigation-ny.com.”
- Contemplate your long-term plan. “Jane Doe, Attorney at Law” is perfect if you expect to be practicing solo for the next decade or more. If you plan to hire or wish to project a larger brand presence, you may want a trade name (if allowed by your state) or add “and Associates” (if allowed by your state).
- Make sure the name isn’t already in use. Search the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s online trademark database, and do some old-fashioned Googling.
Finalize your firm name and entity type (LLP, PC), and as you complete your paperwork, claim your domain name and social media handles.
Assemble your team. In addition to a malpractice insurer, a banker and an accountant well-versed in law firm account structures, look for a marketing partner. You want a legal marketing adviser that offers:
- Experience in legal. General marketers may make beautiful designs, but you will save time and minimize the risk of ethical missteps if you work with marketers with expertise in the legal sector.
- Options for new law firms. Some legal marketing firms are set up to work with startups; some legal marketing firms are set up to work with Skadden. Does the agency have products and services for new law firms? Look for flat-fee pricing and practical solutions — for example, templated websites vs. costly bespoke website design and development.
- Flexibility and freedom. You’re starting a new business. You do not need to be locked into long-term contracts. Steer clear of any kind of monthly-payment rental website, and instead look for a work-for-hire arrangement where you own the site outright after payment..
Also, watch for marketing vendors that offer proprietary website software. Some of these make beautiful websites, but no one else can manage these sites. If you ever want to cut ties with the agency, you will need a whole new website. Websites built on popular platforms like WordPress provide flexibility to change vendors, to work on it yourself (with a YouTube tutorial and an AI assistant) — along with security and search-friendliness.
SEPTEMBER CHECKLIST
Start logo design. Your marketing agency is likely to have its own process, but be prepared to discuss your vision for the firm, your target audience and the services you will provide. The logo design process will be faster if you also share specific names of competitors and specific examples of logos you do and don’t like.
Be candid if you have strong feelings about fonts and colors. It will save everyone time if, at the front end, you let them know nothing can be blue.
Gather marketing intel. Start working on three lists:
- Your contacts. Build a list of everyone you know professionally. Mine your firm email. Download your LinkedIn contacts. Find your holiday card lists. Create a master spreadsheet of all of these contacts; we’ll work with them later. (Again, be mindful of any firm policies, protocols in your partnership agreement, or state guidelines regarding firm clients.)
- Your experience. It’s easy to forget about individual matters once they’re completed, but these combine to form your professional expertise. Make an inventory of your major projects from your tenure at the firm. One place to start: any matter on which you billed 40 or more hours. This can provide context to your biography, practice group pages and, eventually, pitches and proposals.
- Your awards. Have you earned any industry recognitions, like Chambers, Super Lawyers or Best Lawyers, that are connected to your current firm? Having this list ready now will help you act quickly to request an updated award listing in January.
OCTOBER CHECKLIST
Build out your visual identity. Once your logo is done, you have the foundation for your website design and marketing collateral.
For your website, it’s common for marketing firms to start with a few options for the homepage, then move on to interior pages like attorney biographies, practice areas and other content.
Beyond the website, your marketing partner will apply your logo to business materials: electronic letterhead, email signature, PowerPoint slides, signage, and so forth. Do this now, and ensure you have adequate time to review it before the inevitable year-end crunch.
Write or review website content. You may do this on your own or have the marketing team handle it, but your website needs professional prose. Pay special attention to your:
- Home page. It should quickly establish what you do and who you do it for, and it should make it easy for visitors to access the information they want most (contact information, attorney names, services).
- Lawyer biographies. Your potential clients are more likely to view this page than any other; they want to see your expertise and style. At a new firm, show credibility with appropriate examples of your experience.
- Practice pages. While algorithms are radically changing, AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews are turning to law firm practice pages when they compile law firm recommendations. Incorporate AI favorites like Frequently Asked Questions, citations and statistics in a way that appeals to potential human viewers as well as the robots.
NOVEMBER CHECKLIST
Catalog your contacts. Remember that master list of connections you made in September? Let’s put it to work. Sort every contact based on the likelihood they would hire or refer you. This can be in a simple Excel spreadsheet; just create another dedicated column.
You can determine your own categories, but I like the straightforward “hot, warm, cold” classification. Hot contacts are people who match your ideal client profile or people who influence them. Warm contacts may be ideal clients (or refer them) in the future. Cold contacts are people you don’t see hiring you — but you never know how they (or their network) may evolve.
Draft your Q1 business development plan. This does not need to be overly formal, but committing to specific actions in your first six months of business makes you more likely to complete them, and less likely to drift along with random acts of business development.
There are many templates and worksheets available online (and your current firm may have a format you can adopt, too). Writing for this publication, Sally Schmidt advised lawyers to draft plans with four goals:
- Planning for more personal interaction
- Providing better client service
- Engaging in credentialing activities
- Improving your platform
This is a strong, well-rounded framework for the proprietor of a new law firm.
DECEMBER CHECKLIST
Test and proofread your website. Your website partner will provide you with a staging site where you can troubleshoot. Proofread every page and check every link so you are launch-ready in January.
Create firm profiles on popular search engines. Populate a Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business. This helps inform the search engines that you exist and ensures you will show on map searches.
Draft or review your announcements. Enlist your marketing agency to draft a press release about your new firm, and send it to the local legal and business press and your alumni publications. You may also pay to post it on a newswire like Globe Newswire or Business Wire. The newswires may not get you press coverage, but they will help establish your new firm’s online presence with search engines and AI tools as you finalize the final items on your law firm startup checklist.
Write the initial round of outreach emails for your hot, warm and cold contacts. You will send individual emails in January. Refer to your positioning statement to draft emails that cover what your firm does, who you do it for, how you do it and why you are a superior choice. Share a link to your website and social media, and thank them for their consideration.
Answer the question “How can I help?” You will get questions from your network about the new business, and many will ask how they can help you. Often, this can be a free opportunity for some grassroots marketing. Have some concrete answers ready; this could be following the firm on social media, sharing or commenting on your first post, or searching for the firm to show interest to search engines and LLMs.
Set Yourself Up for a Confident Launch
Starting now means you will be able to maneuver your transition in January with confidence and assume the role of business owner with more time for hands-on client work (and billing, and intake, and fixing the computer).
Above all, you will be ready to attract, win and retain exactly the kind of work that has inspired you to make this significant life change.
Be sure to read Katie Barnard’s article, “Starting Your Own Law Firm? Two Costly Mistakes to Avoid,” for more on making you control your firm’s most fundamental assets.
Image © iStockPhoto.com.
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One of a Kind: A Proven Path to a Profitable Law Practice
BY JAY HARRINGTON
In today’s legal market, developing a profitable and consistent book of business requires a strategic approach. If you’re open to new ideas and are interested in growing your practice, this book is a great resource to kickstart the next stage in your career.
