In my previous professional incarnation, as a European in-house counsel for an international telecommunications company, I noticed that many of the smaller telecommunications companies with whom my client did business, did not have their own in-house counsel, even though they knew that their businesses would benefit from the right type of legal support. Their reasoning seemed to go as follows: international telecommunications law is a specialised field; lawyers with the appropriate mix of legal knowledge and industry know-how are rare little creatures, and if you manage to find such a creature under one stone or another, they are neither cheap to keep nor flexible enough to meet the unpredictable or even occasional needs of a small business.
Interestingly, I could see that a not dissimilar view prevented larger international telecommunications companies from taking on occasional additional legal support, when the workload became too much for the existing in-house team: too high a price from even the best private practice lawyers and a lower price but greater risk from most individual contractors.
Getting started
In December 2006, armed with the belief that I had spotted a gap in the legal services market, in which to grow a niche virtual law firm, I left my safe job and its final salary pension scheme, to form “Legal Hobbit” even though a lot of people, whose opinion I respected, thought I was insane and told me so. After all, who ever heard of an international telecommunications law firm in Kidderminster (or any reputable law firm with the word “Hobbit” in the title)?
I knew my former colleagues had a point about Kidderminster at least, and so I signed up for a virtual office service with Stonemartin, which gave me a postal address in the City of London, including a post forwarding service and a switchboard operator service subcontracted to a company called Moneypenny, who act as the public interface between Legal Hobbit and the World, take messages as required and transfer calls seamlessly to my home office in Kidderminster. The Stonemartin service also gives me the option to rent meeting room space at my virtual office address for an additional hourly consideration, although as it happens, I have not yet needed this.
What to provide
As a provider of what I call “virtual in-house” legal services, my aim was always to find a small number of clients, for whom I would act either as their only in-house lawyer or as a supplemental virtual member of an existing law department, doing the kind of day-to-day work, which regular in-house lawyers would focus on; such as advising on customer and supplier agreements; proposing standard terms and conditions for different sorts of transactions; drafting investment agreements; preparing licensing applications in newly liberalised telecommunications markets; briefing clients on new legal developments; and being available to respond promptly by email to the barrage of questions which are likely to arise from thinking clients on a day by day basis.
Client hunting
When I thought about how best to market Legal Hobbit, I made a conscious decision not to advertise. It seemed to me that advertising is a very blunt instrument, and given that I was targeting a relatively small industry sector, the right approach was to identify a list of prospects through careful research, and then make a direct approach via phone and follow-up email to the person(s) who appeared to be the decision maker(s) in each target organisation in terms of selecting outside legal support.
I also followed all the advice I could find about how to get my website to appear high in the list of web engine searches, although so far as I am aware, not a single client has contacted Legal Hobbit as a result of a web engine search. They have either (a) called me following a recommendation from a personal or business contact; or (b) been a positive recipient of my cold calling. I suspect that prospective clients are more likely to pick up the phone to someone they know and ask for a recommendation, rather than probe Google for a law firm.
What I had not anticipated when I started Legal Hobbit was that I would attract and retain clients outside the business-to-business (“b2b”) telecommunications sector. My marketing efforts have also brought in a provider of b2b antivirus solutions; an equipment manufacturer and IT facilities management provider working in the b2b and government markets; a manufacturer of cutting-edge onboard computer systems for the automotive industry; and a company, whose clients include high net worth individuals, who invest in new media start ups across Europe and the Americas. All of these diverse clients have surprisingly similar needs, for a good in-house commercial lawyer, who understands the legal and regulatory issues affecting the international telecommunications and IT industries.
How to charge
One way I sought to differentiate Legal Hobbit in the marketplace was by designing price tariffs, rather more like mobile phone tariffs than typical professional service charges. There are monthly retainer options, subject to a one year minimum contract, where clients commit to pay a fixed amount per month in exchange for up to so many hours per month of legal support, which they can carry forward in the quiet months and use in busier months. I also have a fixed day rate as well as a more traditional hourly rate. I now have nine clients, of whom three are on retainer tariffs and the other six prefer a “pay as you go” approach.
Staying informed
Keeping up to date with the latest legal developments is not much harder for me now than it was when I was an in-house lawyer, although in-house, I did have colleagues, who had different legal interests and with whom I could share knowledge and resources. I still check the websites of a number of the large commercial law firms for up and coming issues as I did when I was in-house. I also subscribe to two e-zines, called World Data Protection Law Report and World Telecommunications Regulations Report; and to Harveys Employment Law Bulletins. I buy downloadable law precedents although many of these are disappointing. My best resource discovery has been the Law Society librarian service. They have a full Lexis Nexis subscription, and the librarians will search Lexis-Nexis and other Law Society library resources for you in response to an emailed request for support. They are also enthusiastic and enjoy doing legal research. Aside from copying charges, the price of this wonderful service is all included in your practicing certificate fee. (See the separate article in this issue on the Law Society Library.)
Day to day practice
As it was when I was an in-house lawyer, most interactions with clients take place by phone and email, and many of the people I work with most closely on a day-to-day basis, I have never met. If I do meet with clients these days, it tends either to be at their offices or at the offices of a (prospective) customer or supplier, with whom they are negotiating an agreement. For clients with no UK presence, I will always make an effort to meet with them if they have cause to visit the UK, and I have had client meetings at airports and hotel lobbies and even at trade exhibitions.
Practice management
I am slightly embarrassed to say that I do not use any practice management software. I had a look at packages which were on offer prior to the launch of Legal Hobbit and at that time, only the very expensive packages had the more sophisticated time recording packages, which interested me”¦”¦.but they also invariably included a bunch of stuff which I really did not need to manage one fee earner (me) and one of my sons, who gives me administrative and low-level paralegal support for ten hours per week. At some point I may change my mind about practice management software, particularly if I decide to apply for Lexcel accreditation, but for the moment, I manage everything using Bento database software by Filemaker and a positively sorcerous array of Excel spreadsheets.
Communications infrastructure
As a telecommunications lawyer, it was probably easier for me than for most people to design the communications infrastructure, which I needed for my virtual law firm. In addition to the obligatory broadband connection, I also have an international conference calling bridge, with dial in numbers from almost every conceivable international location. For data back up, I use the off-site data storage solution provided by the UK company, Depositit.
From an IT technology point of view, I decided to go with an Apple Macintosh operating system, largely because my husband is a digital artist, who has been using Apple computers for years, and I knew that it would be a huge advantage to choose an operating system which he would be able to use his expertise to help me to support.
I have Mac Office installed on my laptop and have never regretted the decision to go with Apple, although (minor annoyance) there is no UK broadband service of which I am aware which offers an integrated, cost-effective and high quality international IP telephony solution which is truly Apple Mac compatible. On the upside, I am spending so much money with my existing voice provider that I have been able to get some very preferential international rates.
I have just invested in the new Apple iPhone, which gives me complete access to my Apple computer when I am away from the office, including the ability to download files from my office computer according to need; all of which has resulted in a far more integrated mobile solution than the one available to me with my previous Blackberry device.
Legal Hobbit today
The best outcome of all has been that the business of providing virtual in-house legal services to clients in the international telecommunications and related industries, really was out there as I had hoped. What I have not yet worked out is how I could extend this highly specialised niche practice to support more than one remote fee earner. I could not even contemplate the risk of a professional negligence claim as a result of somebody doing work and missing something, which could get the firm sued ”¦ because I probably should mention to any budding international telecommuni-cations lawyers intending to follow in my footsteps, that getting professional indemnity insurance for Legal Hobbit was the hardest part about starting the firm.
On balance though, setting up Legal Hobbit from scratch has been the most rewarding time in my professional career. Maybe it is the case for me, as it was for Milton’s Satan: “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven”.
From 1997 until 2006, Katherine Evans worked for the US telecommunications giant, AT&T, where she held a number of legal posts in their Europe, Middle East and Africa region, including Lead International Attorney for AT&T’s Global Solutions Outsourcing business unit. She is now sole principal of Legal Hobbit, a virtual law firm, providing legal services to the telecommunications and IT industries.
Email Katherine@legalhobbit.com.
