The Ups and Downs of Going Solo

Clients didn’t exactly flock to his one-man law office when C. Russell King first arrived in Santa Paula 28 years ago.

“It takes awhile for them to warm up to you,” King said. “Ten to 15 years, I guess.”

Now, when King walks down Main Street, many people say hello or call him aside for a private consultation. He says he has as much business as he can handle and has no regrets about leaving a well-paying job at Lockheed Corp. in the Los Angeles area for the glitz-less life of a country lawyer.

“I like it,” King said. “I enjoy the work. I know who’s in charge and who makes the mistakes.”

King, according to many lawyers, is one of a vanishing breed of attorneys in Ventura County: the sole practitioner. As the law gets more complicated, and as many lawyers seek economies of scale in running their offices, fewer are willing to pay the financial and professional costs of independence.

“It’s tough being a sole practitioner out there--tougher than it was,” said Bartley S. Bleuel, president of the Ventura County Bar Assn.

On the professional side, he said, it’s hard for one person to keep up with constant changes in the law. Working alone, an attorney has no one to exchange ideas with.

More practically, Bleuel said, the sole practitioner has no one to share expenses with, and nobody to fill in for him.

“How do you take a day off?” Bleuel said. “There’s a lot of pressure. You really can’t slow down as a sole practitioner.”

King said he is familiar with all that. At age 70, he said he works every day until 5 p.m. and often comes back to work in the evenings or on weekends.

“I don’t have time to stand at the water cooler as we did in industry,” King said. “I hardly ever talk to my secretary even though she’s my daughter.”

Nancy King, who has been her father’s only assistant for eight years, described the position as “the hardest job I have ever had in my entire life.”

“I don’t know why people think lawyers make a lot of money and don’t do anything for it,” she said. “Anybody can come in this office for 10 minutes and see we are not lollygagging. We work darned hard.”

Last year, after his law partners decided to merge with another firm, Richard A. Regnier opened a solo practice in Oxnard. It was not an easy decision, he said.

“I had known guys who had tried it,” he said. “They folded their tents and went back with firms. They were spending too much time on office administration and non-law matters.”

But a colleague in Santa Barbara persuaded him to give it a try, and now, Regnier said, “I can’t remember any time I’ve been happier practicing law.” He can set his own schedule and priorities, he said.

“If I want to do some pro bono work for an indigent mother, I can do it,” he said. “You don’t have people criticizing you or coming up with their own off-the-wall ideas.”

Regnier acknowledged, however, that as a veteran of the local legal community, he may have had an easier time entering solo practice than a newcomer would.

“For a young lawyer without a client base, it would be fairly lean for a while,” he conceded.

King and Regnier said they have to refer some types of cases to other attorneys.

“One lawyer can’t do it all,” said Regnier, who sees himself primarily as a trial lawyer. King’s practice deals primarily with civil matters, such as business law, personal-injury cases and probate.

Most of the attorneys in Simi Valley are sole practitioners or work in small partnerships, said Neil Harrison Lewis, who has practiced there since 1984. He rents office space in a converted house where two other attorneys also maintain solo practices. They share the expenses of a library and receptionist.

“I would say that generally speaking, most of the attorneys are hurting whether solo or otherwise,” Lewis said. “Everybody is having to work very hard to get the dollars in.”

Being in solo practice, he said, allows him to take part in community activities, like the boys and girls club, the heart association, and the Chamber of Commerce.

“I think it’s vital to make those meetings,” Lewis said, “because it’s an opportunity to pay back the community that’s supporting you.”

It’s also a way to drum up business, he acknowledged.

“It certainly helps business to be active,” Lewis said. “A sole practitioner needs to be involved in something. You need to network to make contacts.”