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How My Failed Solo Practice Set Me Up For Success Years Later
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How My Failed Solo Practice Set Me Up For Success Years Later

The upside of having free time to try side projects with no end goals

Alex Su's avatar
Alex Su
Dec 18, 2021
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How My Failed Solo Practice Set Me Up For Success Years Later
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I really never expected to have this much success on social media. But I was lucky and have been able to ride the right tailwinds. Like when the pandemic hit, I was in the right place at the right time, with all the necessary skills in place. I knew exactly how to create compelling content that could quickly build a community through social media. I was incredibly lucky to be positioned the way I was right as the world shut down and everyone moved online.

But here’s the thing that I’ll always remember: None of it would’ve been possible if I hadn’t gone through my Year In The Wilderness. Which happened right around the time I opened my solo law practice after getting fired from my law firm job in the summer of 2015.

There were a few factors that led me to hang a shingle. As I’ve mentioned before, I’d spent years reading obsessively about prominent lawyers and how they made it big. They all took risks, or went off the beaten path. I knew going solo would be a big risk, and feel different and scary. But armed with the knowledge that it worked for others,1 I plunged right in.

Well. I tried to at least. Being a solo is hard enough as it is. It’s not just about making a website and setting up bank accounts. There are more existential questions you’ve got to answer. Like what should you be working on? Where do you find clients? Should you specialize?

I felt like I had an even tougher job. Because I hadn’t been admitted to the California Bar yet. I was five years out of law school, with big time litigation experience under my belt, and already passed two bar exams, including California, where I lived. So I got started by doing some work, remotely (before it was cool) for friends & family in New York.

As you can imagine, it was hard to find paying clients. Everyone had problems, but few were able to afford to pay me. I went from making six figures as a law firm employee to making absolutely nothing in just a few weeks.2 Some part of me felt like I’d made a huge mistake.

But there was some good news. Because I had no clients, no commute, and no busy work to do, I had a lot of free time. Which let me work on side projects with no concrete goals.

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