So I’ve been building a criminal practice… I’ve now reached the point that I’m bringing in enough clients to make that self-sustaining in terms of paying the bills and generating some income. Criminal practice is fun, but limited in terms of compensation.<\/p>\n
My intention has always been to add at least one, maybe two areas of practice onto that. I’ve been considering some kind of debt\/bankruptcy law or equine law (or both). Of course, I don’t want to spread myself too thin. There’s a lot to learn in each area. Equine law is uncharted. There are a few practitioners, but none doing it the way I’d like it to be done. I’d need to invent a whole business model myself, test it, then innovate. In addition to that, I’d need to get acquainted with areas of the law for which there are few, if any, mentors. There’d be a lot of self-learning.<\/p>\n
Debt\/bankruptcy law is pretty well charted, although I have my own innovations I’d like to introduce, particularly on the business and marketing end. The good thing is that while I’d be able to innovate in certain respects, I wouldn’t have to develop a business model out of whole cloth. And there are tried and true litigation methods, and “Continuing Legal Education” classes that teach you those methods.<\/p>\n
So I’m in a bit of a quandry. I’m leaning toward the debt\/bankruptcy practice because it is proven and because I can anticipate returns in the first half of 2010. These returns are not insignificant. Equine law may be a time and money suck for a while before either failing or being a huge winner. The upside on equine law could be huge, much bigger than bankruptcy\/debt law.<\/p>\n
Here’s one additional consideration: If you’re a pessimist about this economy, you should expect bankruptcy and debt law to be a thriving area for years and years to come.<\/p>\n
Any thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So I’ve been building a criminal practice… I’ve now reached the point that I’m bringing in enough clients to make that self-sustaining in terms of paying the bills and generating some income. Criminal practice is fun, but limited in terms of compensation. My intention has always been to add at least one, maybe two areas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10552","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-general","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9985,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9985\/stopping-horse-fraud\/","url_meta":{"origin":10552,"position":0},"title":"Stopping Horse Fraud","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"October 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In addition to a criminal law practice, I'm building an equine law practice. \u00a0This is where the real money might be made, and real good might be accomplished. Each year, tens of millions of dollars are swindled from horse owners. \u00a0Unlike the real estate industry - which has its share\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11737,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11737\/9999999-ipads-left-to-sell\/","url_meta":{"origin":10552,"position":1},"title":"9,999,999 iPads left to sell…","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"April 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, I couldn't help myself. I bought the iPad - the to-be-shipped-in-late-April, 3G & WiFi, 64 gig model. I see significant work applications - for instance, keeping all client files available for court, creating eBooks of NC criminal code so I don't need to lug around books, and, I hope,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11400,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11400\/various-thoughts-on-small-business-tools\/","url_meta":{"origin":10552,"position":2},"title":"Various thoughts on small business tools","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"February 25, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"1. Google Voice I know there's been some sporadic discussion here about Google Voice: whether it's useful\/wise to use as a business phone number, and about the quality of its transcriptions. I've been very pleased with it in terms of the call routing functionality, and the integration with my Droid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11208,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11208\/some-random-thoughts-on-a-tuesday\/","url_meta":{"origin":10552,"position":3},"title":"Some random thoughts on a Tuesday","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"February 9, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Three months into my law practice, I've broken all my targets, and revised targets, by a mile. In addition to doubling what I predicted I'd book between October and December 31, 2009, I've been relentless about moving up the Google rankings. Basically, I've done this by first winning the search\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14675,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14675\/msnbc-calling-and-a-new-website-design\/","url_meta":{"origin":10552,"position":4},"title":"MSNBC calling, and a new website design","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"June 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"MSNBC is planning to run a story next week on me, as part of a story about how lawyers are coping with a bad economy. And I've been able to grow: I added my wife in January, who has been able to expand the firm's business. We hired a new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12032,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12032\/the-guy-with-the-website\/","url_meta":{"origin":10552,"position":5},"title":"The Guy With the Website","author":"Damon Chetson","date":"May 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Since October 2009 - roughly 8 months ago - my website - www.chetson.com - has brought in just over $200,000 in business. Quite a lot of this business I've referred out. But in referring it out, I've made clear to the receiving lawyers that I'd like to learn from them,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}