Q&A from Chicagoland

These are selected Q&A, answered by a Muslimah attorney a few years ago. She is part of a start-up law group and shares her thoughts with me.

2) Do you have a large support staff? Any support staff? Are they all women? All Muslim women?

We have yet to hire support staff. Our budget is such that we are not able to afford staff yet. We are hoping to get to that point in the next few months Inshallah. We envision women staffers, and probably Muslim, as we need people who speak Arabic fluently in this part of Chicago. As far as answering phones, we are each other’s secretaries. As for filing, etc. we are our own secretaries.


3) How is the office set up? Is it a large office?

Our office is big. It’s 3,200 sq ft. We each have our own individual offices, plus a receptionist’s area and a conference room. There is also plenty of space for additional staff later on.


4) What kind of office software, if any do you use?

We use PracticeMaster and Tabs3.


5) Do you use West or Lexis (or any other service)?

No. There are plenty of creative and cheaper ways to get around using them. The Illinois bar has a very basic version of Lexis/West available to members for free. Another service called Smartbooks has all sorts of academic and practical content in many practice areas as well. There are also LoisLaw and a couple other services I’ve heard about that are cheaper than those two.


6) How are the bills paid? How do you pay yourselves? Do you have benefits or a retirement plan, or any plans for them in the future?

We all made an initial contribution to the LLC, paid quarterly, for one year. When that money runs out we will be paying overhead out of our own pockets monthly. We are now on an “eat what you kill” basis, though eventually we’d like to have profit sharing. No benefits as of yet.


7) How is the work delegated?

Basically, everyone has their own practice areas. Where a case may overlap, we partner with each other.


8) How was the start-up funded?

Each of us contributed our own money.


9) Do you outsource any work- like dictation services or investigation?

So far we haven’t had a need for either (maybe because of our practice areas), but I can imagine when the time comes we would have to.


10) I assume Illinois does not offer LLPs. Is the LLC sufficient for you? Any interest in an LLP if it were available?

IL does offer LLPs. Choosing a entity status is really a matter of taxation. All basically offer the same liability protection. Even as a business attorney, I always tell my clients to have their accountant choose an entity that is right for them, then I explain the liability issues, etc. But generally with an LLC, you can choose to be taxed as a corp or a partnership, so it gives you more flexibility.


11) How's business? Is the business self-sustainable at this point? Any idea when it would become so?

Another partner and myself came in with an already established client base. Even so, real estate has been doing very poorly lately, so I am living off of the business practice. As a firm, we’re not yet self-sustainable, we’re hoping to be by the one year anniversary Inshallah. But business has definitely been picking up as word gets out, Alhumdullilah.


12) Are your husbands very supportive?

Do they all have their own jobs, or are any of them (I cringe at the term) house-husbands? Yes, they are all supportive. 4 of the 6 have husbands who are doctors. And both my fiancé and the other partner’s husband are gainfully employed ;)


14) Has there been any consideration towards expansion?

Inshallah, we have talked about it. It would be nice to have affiliates in other cities. But right now our focus is on having this practice survive.

16) How are business decisions made? What kind of tie-breaking system do you have? Does any one person have more of a say than anyone else?

We all vote on the major decisions. Some other decisions do not need consensus. We have a Managing Partner, but she doesn’t have any more say than the rest. We are planning on having a new Managing Partner every year or two, just to take the stress off of one person.


17) I realize that you cover many practice areas. Are there, however, any "typical" clients that you could describe?

That’s really hard to describe. We are located in a heavily Muslim populated area, but not all of our clientele is Muslim. We have some Christian Arabs, whites, Latinos, African-Americans, Asians, etc. A little of everything.


18) Do many members of the local Muslim community use your services? Is the Muslim community generally supportive?

Yes, alhumdullilah. So far the Muslim community has been supportive. They’ve done articles in the local papers and newsletters on us. We’ve also been on a Muslim radio talk show...

19) Any interest in ADR?

I love ADR. I’d love to be a mediator. Inshallah I’ll get more into it as my career progresses.


20) Any pitfalls you'd like to warn me about?

CLIENTS – they are demanding and don’t want to pay when the work is done. Collect upfront ALWAYS!


21) Any mistakes you'd like to share?

Going too big from the beginning. Get a small office and spend as least money as possible on equipment, programs, furniture etc.


22) Are you aware of any benefits gained from doing business in this way?

You share a rapport with each other and the community that you are targeting (assuming it’s Muslims as well). You also attract attention from the non-Muslim community in that you are breaking stereotypes.


23) Does the business have particular limitations because of the way that it's structured and business choices members have made?

Not really, even if we go to profit sharing, our LLC status allows us to do so.


24) Is any one practice area more lucrative than others?

It ebbs and flows. Right now real estate is way down. But business is good (if your target clientele tends to be business oriented, as ours is). Family law is always (unfortunately) good (except during holidays). Immigration is excellent. People are always getting tickets and being accused of crimes. Civil rights may be good if you’re working with the Muslim community.


26) Anything you'd like to add, wisdom you'd like to impart?

PLAN, PLAN, PLAN…do not rush into anything. Make sure you get to know your potential partners before you decide to do anything. Make sure everyone is on the same wavelength. Whatever you budget for, it will cost you double!

Learn to edit!

I have had the distinct pleasure of editing a portion of a book that was, well, very poorly written (English is this sister's second language). The book had a lot of great stuff to say, however, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the author could not afford to have the entire book edited, and so I was fired. Upon my dismissal, I gave her some advice that applies to law students too, if for the only reason that lawyers are writers, like it or not.

"Don't give up on your book, and start editing it yourself when you have time. When the time comes where you have money to finish editing and publish, the job will be simpler and quicker for the editor-- making the job much less expensive, insha Allah.

"I will give you a little editor's advice. Insha Allah, it will be somewhat helpful to you.

"If you examine the work I have done, you will notice that much of the work involved incorporating your bracketed side notes into the main text and smoothing the use of the Urdu words. With a little creativity and grammar skills, you can do this yourself.

"I have cut lists of words because the words tend to be synonyms of each other after a while, and the effectiveness of the passage wanes.

"Also, if you read your writing aloud, (or have an American friend or one of your kids do it?) it becomes easier to critique and make changes.

"Not many of us are great writers, or even good writers. I myself am not a good writer, but I'm an excellent editor, so I appear to be a good writer. The best thing you can do for your writing is to be as critical as you can be, and improve each sentence one at a time. And if a sentence is not necessary-- either because it's irrelevant, only slightly relevant, or already stated, then cut it."

--------------------

So you're trying to impress your boss with your incredible insight and understanding of a complex legal issue. Don't distract her with your poor grammar and irrelevant sentences instead. Unless you're fortunate, you won't have your best friend and editor to fix your mistakes before submitting. You should learn while in law school how to edit your own writing. The process, BTW, requires at least one full night's sleep between the writing finish and the editing start.

LSAT scholarship

Interested in law school? Check this out:

http://www.sidley.com/careers/northamerica/about/prelawscholars/

Once you get into law school...

Assuming a student doesn't get kicked out of law school after her first year, there are still a lot of steps to take before she becomes licensed in North Carolina.

First, she needs to finish out her second and third year of law school and graduate.

She also needs to fill out a grueling bar application that requires her to list practically every detail of her life, including parents, prior husbands, divorce details, judgments, debts, job details and employment history, school history, credit history, criminal history (includes traffic tickets and any other hiccup) and residences since the age of 18. She must have a total of twelve personal references-- no ex-employers or family members. Four of those must fill out and get notarized a "Certificate of Good Character." Part of the application process requires that she sit for an interview with Bar-commissioned attorneys who are supposed to discuss the application with her and look for, and justify any perceived discrepancies.

That application must be complete no less that 5 1/2 months prior to taking the July bar exam, which turns out, is a terrible time for students to be worrying about a bar application.

Then she must take the bar exam, which is a 2-day, 12 hour test. This will cost her several hundred dollars ($600 + late charge, if any) plus another $100 for software if she takes the exam on a laptop.

It costs almost three thousand dollars to take the standard state-specific bar review course (which is the first day of the exam). For the MBE portion (the second day), classes run from anywhere between $400 and $1000.

Assuming she passes (it's about 1 1/2 months before she finds out whether she passes) she must get sworn in. She must look for a job and get hired somewhere, or, she must go through another set of hurdles to establish a firm for herself, which includes a 7-step process to become a Professional Limited Liability company, buying insurance, establishing bank accounts that satisfy the State bar, and all that other regular stuff that businesses have to do.

Taking the bar and wearing a scarf at the same time

Yes, folks, it can be done.

The bar rep took me into another room. I took off my scarf and she made sure I wasn't wearing wires or a switch blade... or whatever she was looking for. She didn't feel my scalp or anything, so it wasn't too bad. The room had a big window that opened to the lobby, so I had to shift to the side where people weren't in the line of sight. It took 30 seconds- no big deal.

Like I said, the woman who checked me was embarrassed to ask me-- I tried to make her comfortable. She didn't want to check me after lunch, but I made her. She avoided me on the MBE day, and I didn't flag her down. If it was that big a deal, she would have found me.

Michele was quite a bit more annoyed, having taken it last July. They wanted her to take off her "hat." She said it wasn't a hat and argued w/ the bar rep until the bar rep called a supervisor and they let her through. Pretty funny. Apparently, hijab-wearing women don't make a habit of passing through the exam doors. Alhamdulillah that is changing.

Perhaps the reason why the MPRE and LSAT don't require an under-hijab search is because they are national tests, and they've probably already run into that issue and decided it isn't worth the invasion of privacy to the test taker.

Virginia didn't require that I show my head, but there were no covered sisters taking the test with me.

Check your disc drive before you walk in to the bar exam!

NC's rules for sitting for the bar are quite strict, and one does not go through her 1L year at Central without being warned about the dangers of breaking those rules.

I was busted anyway. My own fault. Don't let it happen to you.

My disc drive, for some reason, does not like the first of my set of three Sales CDs. When it didn't work while I was washing dishes a couple weeks before the exam, I put on something else and forgot the disc was there, and yeah, forgot to take it out until...

... about a second after I walked into the exam room. I had plenty of time before the test was to start and informed the proctor right away. I probably could have gotten away with it if I hadn't said anything. But my conscience would have been screaming for the next 6 hours.

VERY frustrating to get the letter telling me I had to wait until my affidavit was reviewed by the bar officials at the same time everyone else was getting their pass/fail letters. There was no personal interview.

At first I was told the meeting was in OCTOBER (for a February exam), then got a follow-up letter saying, "oops, sorry, we meant June." That was a bit of relief.

As for special circumstances (?), one of the bar folks asked to check under my scarf. She was very polite, apologetic, and kind of embarrased about it. She didn't check me the 2nd day for the MBE. I don't/didn't mind the search because I certainly don't want anyone thinking I had an unfair advantage or an opportunity to cheat.

I passed! Alhamdulillah. But I didn't get my Sales CD back :(

How important are those grades?

Asalaam alaikum,

This little blog post touches on anxiety over law school grades. I agree that there are more important things in life than law school A's (and the law school journal for that matter), and that we may not define ourselves by our grades. That would just be silly.

However, it is much easier to get an interview if you're at the top of the class.

http://ms-jd.org/are-grades-everything

This site is a positively scathing parody of life at a law firm. Enjoy and consider what the author is saying:

http://anonymouslawfirm.com/page.php?text_id=Summer_Program