Don't call me a solo.

I will not be a solo-practitioner when my shingle [make that a banner] finally gets tacked above my door. I am striking out to be a 'Non_Solo Lawyer.'   

I am after all already a node in the IP world filled with resources, information and other non-solos. The shared resources among practice groups in a 1000 person mega firm separated by walls, floors and cities are not much different (albeit smaller) than the world of non-solos connected together over IP.  Technology is the answer we have been waiting for.  Efficiency,communication, outsourcing and vertical specialization are the promise of correctly used technology. 

A pundit asked recently how big firms will evolve over the next decade.  Pundits answered in all sorts of ways.  But none mentioned that  solos tied together offering more options and talent than the largest firms with niche areas of specialization will become new competitors to the largest firms.  Non-solo practitioners with controlled overhead, nimble business models based on common principles but each built on the 'no-boss' principle will compete against the Goliath.  Why would any client want the best lawyer within the practice group in a firm, when they kind have the best in the state, country or world? The Greatest American Lawyer is in the house and its time to change everything we have come to know about the practice of law.  This site will chronicle my departure from a 10 lawyer 40 employee law firm in a medium United States town.  It will include everything any lawyer needs to know about starting their own firm, from business plans to technology, from software to office space. After all, if you really are the best at what YOU do, why would you want to allow others to tell you how and why to practice law?  If you have the confidence of the value that you can provide clients, you will succeed over time, over mountains and defiantly as a non-solo.

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[Law.com]

Proof that large sophisticated clients such as Intel are moving towards solo talent, and away from the large firms.

Intel Is Moving Toward Solos, Small Firms

Excerpt:

Any firm that manages to grab Simon's attention will soon learn his hiring bias: Brand-name firms from large cities need not apply. "We are moving to what we call low-overhead firms: individual practitioners or firms that are no more than seven people, not in major cities," he says. At large firms second- or third-year associates wind up doing the bulk of Intel's work; at smaller firms Intel gets more attention, Simon says.

Simon moved to Intel in 1996, about a year and a half after Spensley was absorbed by Los Angeles' Loeb & Loeb. "I had gotten soured about being in a law firm and dealing with the problem of having partners," he says. "I wanted something different."