Here is a summary of the main subjects omitted  from the law school curriculum. They probably shouldn’t be part of the curriculum as such.  Some warning would have been nice. But if they had offered courses in  these subjects – even for no credit – people would have shown up and taken notes.

1. The “business” of a law practice  has nothing to do with the skills of being an attorney;
2. Being organized – generally – means everything.  Remember law school – talking about or focusing on, one case at a time? Comparing one or two cases? But not how to manage 10,  or 100 matters at once, making calls back to any client or prospective client who calls, deciding which ones need documentation  and doing that, and also getting enough sleep; and no matter how hard law school is – if one thinks of a given course as a “case,”  perhaps the professor as “client,”  or “judge,” at most we’re juggling five or six.
3. A subset of “the business” part – how to negotiate fees.  Doing it effectively and morally, even if it’s permissible, isn’t easy – unless you’re amoral. It’s probably not polite to say out loud or in print, but there are attorneys who are good at getting publicity, good at attracting clients, good at getting paid whose skills as attorneys don’t much the former skills.  They are, in my view, distinct and independent skill-sets.
4. Almost everyone seems to have trouble tracking time; the people with the least difficulty are those who join organizations who’ve already set up systems. Learning to make it a habit while you’re trying to learn  the best way to do it, or invent your own system.  It seems to be even worse for people whose first job – in my case, a state prosecutor’s office – involved tracking lots of things – but not time assignable (i.e. billable) to a particular client and/or matter.
5. We’ll only mention the subject of technology. I don’t think I’ve encountered a firm with less than 50 in legal staff that had its own IT personnel. And using technology – to  manage the practice and to solve problems – can be the difference between success and failure.
6. Office space, telephones, answering services, office equipment, finding good investigators and experts, malpractice insurance – solo practitioners – unless they’ve go someone helping them – that’s not the whole list, and doing it by yourself might be too much, and hiring someone to help – the right person – might seem like too much money.

Legal Marketing Maven can help you -  one person in an office, and I suspect they have a few things up their sleeves even useful to the biggest and most lucrative firms.  The firm – the name notwithstanding, they do a lot more, but my understanding is that they offer services on an as-needed basis – and market them, wisely, separately and together. But I found them through Caitlin, an outstanding site designer who designed LMM and who refers to herself as Rent-A-Geek-Mom. Here are some posts from the Legal Marketing  Maven Blog (res ipsa loquitor:

• Easy Ways to Boost Your Law Firm’s Search Engine Rankings
  
• Law Firm Management: Do you have an emergency plan?
• Officially Re-launching LM2- Coaching, Implementation and Marketing Support for Lawyers
• Turn Your Handwriting Into a Font

There’s much more available at Legal Marketing Maven – on the blog, and elsewhere on the site. If you need more business – or you’re having trouble managing the workload (and team) that you have, this is an opportunity to make up for the things your law school forgot to teach you.  Thanks to Caitlin for the tip.