There’s nothing more liberating than starting a business and becoming your own boss. For most lawyers, starting their own practice is probably somewhere on their list of career goals. However, many attorneys never achieve their dream of launching a firm. After all, being an entrepreneur is hard work and requires the right tools, business plan, and mindset.

You may be a master of complex litigation, but are you ready to launch your own law firm? Continue reading to get some tips that will help you launch a successful legal practice.

Get some experience before launching your own law firm.

It would be nice to start a law firm immediately upon receiving your law degree, but it’s a good idea to get experience before you try to run your own law office. Malliha Wilson is the founder and senior counsel of Nava Wilson LLP, but she didn’t start at the top.

After Malliha graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, she started her career working in the Ministry of Government Services as special counsel to the Native Affairs Secretariat of the Ontario government. Eventually, Malliha worked her way up to the position of Assistant Deputy Attorney General for the Government of Ontario, becoming the first visible minority to serve in that role. As Ontario’s assistant deputy attorney general, Malliha brought important human rights and labour law cases before the Supreme Court of Canada.

As you can see, Malliha had already built an impressive career by the time she launched Nava Wilson LLP. In fact, her extensive experience and great reputation have served her law firm well and helped it land some notable cases, and getting experience before starting your own firm could do the same for you.

Stand out through your customer service.

Your customer service is one of the areas where you can draw lines of distinction between you and your competition. By providing the optimal customer experience, you can boost confidence in your brand and increase recommendations to your firm.

One of the best ways to improve customer interactions is by employing your own virtual call center. With contact center as a service (CCaaS) solutions, you can reduce hold times for clients, provide omnichannel solutions, and reduce the need for human agents in your customer interactions.

Interactive voice response (IVR) is one of the greatest CCaaS solutions as it uses artificial intelligence to provide customer support without the aid of a human agent. With agent automation, IVR uses voice recognition to match voices and information with customer data and provide a customized experience to each caller.

Use SEO to enhance digital marketing efforts and increase your web traffic.

The digitization of our world has dramatically changed the way businesses reach their target audience. Digital marketing is here to stay, and SEO is the best way to maximize your digital marketing efforts.

Content marketing is one of the most effective SEO practices as it enables bloggers to expand their audience and increase their online authority. By using keywords to increase the content’s relevance and backlinks to generate organic traffic, you can see significant traction with your digital marketing efforts.

Running your own firm is a monumental responsibility which is why it’s a good idea to get experience practicing law before launching your own law firm. The keys to building a successful legal practice are prioritizing the customer experience, building the right company culture, and maximizing your digital marketing efforts with SEO.

It takes a special set of skills and the right approach to business to build a successful law firm. Indeed, if launching a practice was easy, every lawyer would do it. However, with the right tools, best practices, and business model, you can grow a prosperous firm that’s lucrative for you and a beacon of hope for your clients.

Joyce Laroche