A lot of lawyers still think that achieving success in the profession is exclusively about going big—that it means a spot in a high-profile megafirm where, if you toil long and hard enough, you’ll be rewarded with the big bucks and all the staff and resources you could ever want to meet your various needs.
 But, of course, there is an alternative definition of success for a whole crop of other practitioners.Many lawyers, of every age and stripe, have come to understand that, when it comes to having a great career, their genetic composition may very well be better suited to the life of the solo practitioner. These are people who assay autonomy, confront conformity and revel in risk taking.
 True, setting up one’s own practice is often fraught with the potential for failure. However, many lawyers who have succeeded—through both diligence and creativity— say they wouldn’t have it any other way. “Although I know very well that I don’t have the safety of a paycheck, I love the autonomy my own practice offers,” says Vancouverbased solo practitioner Nicole Garton-Jones. “Now that I’ve tasted the freedom of this experience, I could never go back to a larger firm.”
 So what does it take to make it on the alternate path and hit the high notes in solo practice these days? What follows are the success stories of four very different people— Camden Hall, Garton-Jones, Arthur Shaffer and Peter Klenk. They arrived at the solo life from varied backgrounds but they have two distinctive things in common: They love going it alone, and they’re forthcoming in offering recommendations to others who might be flirting with the idea.

 A Multitasker Makes It Happen with the Classic Balancing Act Across the U.S.-Canadian border from Hall and his downtown Seattle office, Nicole Garton-Jones also left a big firm to set up her own law office.Her Vancouver, British Columbia, practice focuses on trusts and estates and real estate work, and like Hall, she does some family law work. Unlike Hall, however, she found her way to solo-dom early in her career.

 After graduating from law school in 2000, Garton- Jones worked for one of Canada’s largest law firms, Borden Ladner Gervais, in the corporate commercial practice area. Her experience there and at another partnership led her to a simple but significant conclusion: Large firm culture and high-powered commercial work didn’t fit her style or skills. “I was trying to be someone I wasn’t,” she says. “The things that make me good at what I do now were not strengths there. I’m empathetic and soft-spoken. I like to work with families, and I like to work on residential real estate deals—not commercial ones.”
 Armed with this self-knowledge, Garton-Jones made a move to go on her own—sort of. She had a hybrid practice as a public affairs consultant and a contract attorney with another Vancouver firm, which helped her to build a law practice but charged her a percentage of what she made. Then, tiring of that arrangement, Garton-Jones broke ties with the firm and went completely solo in June 2005, naming her new enterprise Heritage Law (www.bcheritagelaw.com) and capitalizing on the trusts and estates legal needs of the older members in her surrounding community. “I live in a high-net-worth community with a lot of people in the 55-to- 75 age demographics. So I chose this practice area because I enjoy it but also because of the demographics. It fit nicely.”
 Nicely, indeed, with all the proverbial ducks in a row— or so it seemed. But the very same month Garton-Jones launched Heritage Law, her life took an abrupt turn. “I found out I was having a baby,” she recalls. “It was a good surprise. But it was a surprise. I thought, ‘What am I going to do? I just started my own firm and I’m going to have a baby in nine months.’”
 Realizing she would need to be extra-efficient and capable of working remotely so that she could spend time with her baby, Garton-Jones went to the Pacific Legal Technology Conference in fall 2005 for ideas. “I listened to all the speakers and thought the people who had practices like the one I wanted had paperless, highly automated offices,” she says. “You didn’t need as much staff that way. You can work remotely. That all sounded good to me.”
 Today, with her business a year and a half old and her baby girl turning one in March, Garton-Jones seems in complete control of her life and career. She shares office space with another Vancouver lawyer but often works at home, thanks to a “massive tech upgrade” she invested in with some $40,000 in savings. The two lawyers also share three paralegals and a receptionist. In addition, Garton-Jones employs another paralegal part-time—a T&E expert who works remotely—and has two lawyers on contract who help her when she gets a heavy workload. Also, she and her husband raise their baby with the help of a live-in nanny who she considers a team member and “equal partner,” too.
 Garton-Jones advises those considering a solo practice to first give themselves a personality audit. “This is only for certain people because you have to have the audacity to sell yourself to clients,” she says. “And you have to be a multitasker, comfortable with doing the legal work and running the administrative side of the business.”
 That takes some by surprise, says attorney Reid Trautz, the practice advisor for the Practice and Professionalism Center of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a co-editor of the ABA’s Flying Solo book. “Solos,” he cautions, “need to realize that they’ll spend less time practicing law and more time marketing and developing the infrastructure to get the work done.”
 Garton-Jones apparently gets that, and she’s convinced that solo is the only way to go. “I’m able to make a six-figure income, have a family, do what I like and determine the course of my career,” she says. “I like it.”

This article appears in the January/February 2007 issue of Law Practice to continue reading the rest please click here