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Also, reach out to all lawyers in your circle, your friends in a law firm are routinely asked by their known for legal advice and since they won't be taking it up, better they send it your way than to someone else. A friend just told me yesterday that she has been an independent lawyer in Delhi for the past 8-10 months. If she had told me earlier, I could have sent a cheque bounce case her way. People are busy with their lives don't expect them to magically get to know that you are practising now. I know it's spammy, tacky but it gets the ball rolling. If there are folks whom you are not sure of calling text them but make sure the text is personalized, not asking you to create a new message for everyone but at least their initials in your message so that they feel obliged to reply. Remember, the less the effort you put into it, the lesser are the chances they would feel obliged to help.
Make sure you are part of every free listing Justdial, Sulekha, UrbanClap, Lawrato etc. Also, set up yourself on Google Maps as a local business listing, do it at your residential address if you are not sure you will continue working at your relative's place for too long.
Start spending time on LinkedIn and Facebook, and by spending time, I don't mean endlessly scrolling through the mess. Start posting quality content, adding relevant people to your network, and engage with other's content. Yes, Facebook is deliberate over there, Facebook could get you as much work as LinkedIn, if not more, if you leverage it right.
That's my two cents for now. Hope that helps.
Make a good website, write a blog on areas you practice. Most lawyers have shit presence online.
Even Indian Law Firms had zero online presence a few years back. A useless half baked website won't help.
I am a litigating lawyer in Delhi with over 3 years of experience. However, despite having good litigation experience, i was still being paid around 25-30K by my law firm and therefore, i decided to quit as i was feeling under-appreciated and extremely under-paid for the amount of work i was doing. So now, i have decided to go independent and i'm curious to know, what are the things i should keep in mind when starting my own independent practice? I know i have to take care of the finance part, but a relative of mine was kind enough to give me a cabin in his basement (rent free) to work from there.
Is it a good decision to go independent during the present Covid period? How and Where should i network to get cases/clients? I'm mostly worried about getting clients as i am a first generation lawyer with no god-father in the industry. Every single suggestion would be highly helpful as i'm quite anxious before starting. Its taking a toll on my mental health as it feels like i'm starting from scratch despite being practicing Litigation for the past couple of years.
Thanks in advance!