Chuck Newton

Home Prices May Sink 25% More Before The Market Finally Hits Bottom

As reported on Business Week, the housing and economic storm is still gathering force. The government has said annual economic growth slowed to just 0.6% in the fourth quarter as home construction plunged at a 24% annual rate. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell 7.7% in November from the year before, the biggest decline since the index was created in 2000.  And, home prices could fall another 25% before we hit bottom.

The question then becomes, if you are an attorney, should you be throwing money away in office leases, that are increasing each year, or conserving your money and investing it aggressively in a home (and hence a home office)?

I think the answer is obvious.  The housing market is weakening right now no matter where you are located.  Some places are downright bad.  Some places are only moderately so.  However, the truth of the matter is that we have before us the mother load of good fortune if your objective is to (1) take your practice home, and (2) build your investment.

As house prices fall or moderate, so are conventional mortgage rates.  Many of the most risky financing products might be gone, but you can still finance a house with a cheap mortgage (including government insured loans) for only 1 to 3% down, and lock in your mortgage payment for 30 years.

You simultaneously improve your work-live balance or blending, save gobs of money in downshifting, while greatly increasing your comfort and investment.

What is bad for some, can be golden for you the home office attorney.  Low interest rates, low payments, and generous tax breaks make the home office solution even better.

And, let us face the obvious.  We know from history that this downward trend in interest and house values is not going to continue for ever.  Both are going to rebound leaving you with growing wealth and a comfortable living and work environment.

It is time to take the plunge.

Yes

Photo Law?

Andrew Flusche at Legal Andrew got me thinking of "photo law", or the right to take pictures in public.

Most of you know I am an advocate of niche legal practices.  The more tightly focused (there's a pun) the better.  But, I kept asking myself where is there a need for photo law?  What are you going to do, set up a kiosk at Disney World and offer to represent people?  But, the more I think about it, this has to be a practice area.

Niche practices are sometimes practice areas restricted to a very defined law, or they are sometimes marketing emphasis on a number of related practice areas.  The question is where does photo law come in?

First, I remember as a teenager in Texarkana, Texas of all places being asked by my father and other doctors to take some pictures of the town that they could use to recruit new physicians to the area.  What an easy job for a 16 year old.  So, my best friend and I took out photographing all of the points of interest with his Nikon camera.  We did fine until we pulled up to the federal prison in Texarkana.  We took a couple of quick pictures and drove off.  The next thing we knew we were surrounded by cars, pulled out of the car, placed on the ground, the camera confiscated and then we were questioned.  Apparently, federal prisons do not like being photographed.  They eventually let us go because one of the officers knew my father and believed our story.

Second, now with national security issues this Texarkana prison incident is magnified I would suspect.  Go downtown and start taking pictures all around the federal courthouse and see if your activities are not interrupted.

Third, think of the Brittney Spears scandals and the problem with the Paparazzi.  Celebrities claim they are being harassed and Paparazzi are being assaulted.  What is the right of these people to take pictures in public?  What are the rights of celebrities to have some degree of privacy, especially when their children are involved?  What of the pictures they take?  They get big money for some of them.  What about copyright protection?

The point is that where there is friction, there is a legal practice or a niche practice waiting to be exploited.

Are you the next photo lawyer?

University Of Wyoming College Of Law

I cannot help it really.  When I think of the University of Wyoming College of Law, located in Laramie, Wyoming, I think of all of those old black and white westerns I use to watch on TV back when I was a kid.  In fact, I remember the show Laramie staring John Smith as "Slim" and Robert Fuller as "Jess", and their horses Alamo and Hoot.

Well, the great wild west has grown up and has a law school.  In fact Wyoming Law was established in 1920 and is accredited by the ABA.  It offers a J.D. degree as well as a joint degree with a Masters of Public Administration.

One of its famous alumni really plays the old west part -- famed trail lawyer Gerry Spence.

It is the only law school in the Wyoming and it is one of the smallest law schools in the nation, with only a total enrollment of 225.  This might present some problems, such as not having a part-time program, but with 20 full-time professors, there can be no shortage of personal attention from the school.

Laramie is a town of approximately 30 thousand people in the southeast portion of the state and sits at an altitude of about 7,200 feet between two mountain ranges.  Denver, Colorado is about two hours south.  Most people describe the area as majestic.

The school is also a value because its full-time tuition for in-state students is just $7,635 per year.  But, even for out-of-state students the tuition is $16,155.00, which is substantially lower than most private law schools.

The law schools bar passage rate for first time takes is pretty good at 74%, but the bar passage rate for first time takers is 80%.  The school is not far off.

About 82% of students receive grants and the the median grant amount per student is $1,200.

It is a law school worth looking at.

Marketing A Start-Up Solo Practice

Burman E. Burger has a nice article on FindLaw with this title.  The article is a little quaint, but I truly think it expresses some relevant points from the perspective of someone how had to go through the solo process just a few years ago.

The first point is that marketing should be the first concern and it should be directed to get referrals. This means that it should be done cheaply because most solos starting out do not have gobs of money to throw at at the promotion of their practices or their causes.

Mr. Burger's practice is general in nature, but even he suggest that maybe a niche practice is best.  I like his description of general practice as "Suburban Law".

Mr. Burger spends some space describing the benefits of setting up his own personalized URL with an internet service provider so that he would not have to change email addresses.  All of that is fine, but I could not connect to any website when entering BaBergerLaw.Com,  That is a shame to get national recognition of this sort and not to have an active website.  He is right that a website can costs only a few bucks a month, so why not use it.  It is one of the most effective tools available to the solo and getting better.

I strongly disagree with his concept of spending money on quality paper and letterhead, except for business cards.  Sure, it might project a slightly better image, but at what cost?    Letterhead and mail should be your final recourse.  You need to strive mightily to operate totally online.  Traditional mail not only costs postage, it take a lot of your time as a solo, or it takes a lot of staff time that is costly, and it is as slow as molasses.  In this day and age I do not believe that people, and especially businesses, are overly impressed with expensive letterhead.  In fact, I think it might hurt your image as one who is not technically advanced.

I agree with Mr. Burger on his ideas or developing referrals -- websites, listserves, speaking engagements and the like are all good.  Nix the idea for yellow page ads.  They have always been expensive and only marginally successful for most solos, and they are dying.  The back cover, if you can afford it, might be good because that is more like a billboard, but the rest of the book is not.

Dollar Store Dos And Don'ts

Whether for the office, the home or the home office, if you are a skinflint like me, you can appreciate this piece on the dos and don'ts of shopping at dollar stores.

The Thin Mac

Not to long ago I asked which is better -- the Thin Mint cookie or the Thin Mac.  Only Grant Griffiths at Home Office Lawyer chose the Thin Mac over that fabulous Girl Scout cookie that started being sold at the same time as the Thin Mac.  That must be un-American.  But, now funny people over at College Humor seem to agree with most critics' reviews of the MacBook Air, as demonstrated in a new parody video available HERE.

Oh-o-o-o-o-o Y-e-e-e-s-s-s, Napquest!

Yuk!

Email Salutations Must Go!

That is Andrew Flusche's position on the matter.  It is a matter of productivity more than politeness.  Emails are less formal than traditional letters.  Besides, I think it is already clear that when Morgan Freeman gets around to reading emails in some future PBS documentary by Ken Burns in the future, the emails will not have the same stretchiness, lyrical, ornamental, picturesque, or ceremoniousness of the letter writers of the Civil War. 

OMG!  Can you believe I said that?  LOL!

Although, I kind of miss the formality of formal letters, I have got to admit that we respond to and draft too many emails in this day and age to concern ourselves with such formality.  Now, that said, I think we all understand that I am much to verbose to comply with Andrew's five sentence rule, or at least I would need to employ 5 very long sentences.