Slow Start, Moving Forward

[MrLexington]

Hi. New kid here. My name is Jeremy but I often go by MrLexington (or some variation) online. I'm a writer and attorney in Northern Virginia.

I read Millionaire Fastlane years ago and it defined my goals since then: reach the magic number where income from interest/dividends could pay for monthly bills.

Now I've gone back to read Unscripted and The Great Rat Race Escape , and they are forming the foundation of my Next Act for when I can leave the law firm I work for right now.

As both of those books suggest, this has come with a few existential crises, mostly involving the shift from being an employee to being a business owner/entrepreneur--and dealing with the fact that I don't like "entrepreneur culture" even though I am one. Maybe I am an anti-businessman?

All of that said, I feel more ready to move forward with this sort of endeavor now than when I first read Millionaire Fastlane . Right now I have a side business (small niche publishing house) already going that is essentially a form of community service (I promised myself I would take no income from it). But I intend to use it to learn a few lessons that I can apply to build a larger empire: publishing, writing, and selling curated items to a narrow, niche audience.

Will that be enough to get me to my various Key Numbers? Probably not--but I know I'm at the beginning of a road, not the end of one. I can't quite see how it all ends yet, but I'm damn interested in how to get there.

Not quite sure what else to say, but I wanted to introduce myself at long last. I have actually been reading for a little while before the Great Gating, but I know I didn't contribute enough to be grandfathered in. Happy to answer any questions folks have.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Welcome aboard.

I'm a writer and attorney in Northern Virginia.

Are there any "Fastlanes" you can leverage in law? Aside from your own practice?

I've lost count on how many times entrepreneurs roll into here with legal questions to which I say, "Sorry, but this is a legal matter, not an opinion.

Right now I have a side business (small niche publishing house) already going that is essentially a form of community service (I promised myself I would take no income from it). But I intend to use it to learn a few lessons that I can apply to build a larger empire: publishing, writing, and selling curated items to a narrow, niche audience.

In law? Or totally unrelated? If so, do you want to leave law for good? I hear a lot of that from people who left the profession.

 

[MrLexington]

Are there any "Fastlanes" you can leverage in law? Aside from your own practice?

There are some structural obstacles that make it difficult, but I’m trying to find corners where they may not be so prevalent.

For example, the infamous billable hour virtually guarantees a time-for-money trade for most attorneys doing client work. Ethics rules that require specific duties to clients and ongoing conflict-of-interest management also limit scale—a given attorney can only have so many clients at a time. There are also limitations on solicitation/advertising in many states that can be inhibiting. Whether or not an attorney-client relationship has been created is a huge deal that has a lot of ramifications, so you want to be very careful when dancing around that minefield.

One possibility would be, for example, drafting fill-in-the-blank legal forms that could be bought off-the-rack. That has worked for companies like Nolo. I have my eyes out for specific niche needs that Nolo won’t cover, or audiences who need slightly more specific guidance than Nolo gives.

One example of that could be relatively simple/clear explanations of copyright and other intellectual property principles for writers, business owners, or non-profits. There are some out there, but my wager is that I’d be able to do it better (positive value skew). So I’m learning as much as I can about it even though I am not technically a copyright lawyer, and finding opportunities to apply it.

(I should also add, I am not in a huge rush. I have a roughly five year timeline, to May 1, 2029, for when I want to be ready to leave the law. And I want to take the time and opportunities I have to build a solid foundation before/while the FTE happens.)

In law? Or totally unrelated? If so, do you want to leave law for good? I hear a lot of that from people who left the profession.

I don’t *need* to leave law completely, as many lawyers do. I kind of like a lot of it, especially the analysis and intellectual challenge. What I dislike is sort of all the parts where other people, especially non-clients, get involved—e.g., litigation. (The profession is ailing in many ways and for many reasons—but that’s a much longer thread.) In general, though, I would much rather be making a change because I’m running *toward* something I want or enjoy rather than running *away* from something I hate.