I read an email from a probate attorney recently that said something like, “The decedent met his demise on March 1, 2010.” My mouth dropped open.

Met his demise?

Never use that phrase– it’s like probate attorney profanity in the ears of sensitive clients. It’s one of those phrases that has such an insensitive edge to it that it just never should be used– even when talking with other attorneys. It could be absolutely disastrous with client relations if you used it in the presence of someone who knew the decedent.

What phrase should you use when talking about someone who has died, particularly in the presence of family members? I’ve found that the phrase that works best and seems to have the softest edge to it is “passed away.” Just saying “died” is ok too.

So eliminate “met his/her demise” from your vocabulary and use something else.

What phrase do you use? Let us know in the comments.

This post is Part 5 of the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice.

In this, our final post in the “How to Grow a Probate Practice” series, I want to make a simple point. Don’t be a lone-ranger probate attorney. Though the probate process is fairly routine once you learn it, every estate has its own set of unique problems. This makes practicing probate interesting and even fun if you like challenges. But it also means that there will constantly be issues you address that will be new to you. The statutes are helpful. So always start there when you can’t find the answer (remember to be systematically reading through the probate code each year).

However, there are a lot of practical issues you’ll face that aren’t covered by the statues, such as:

• Should you allow the personal representative to keep the estate’s checkbook, or should you require the personal representative to come to your office to write checks?
• Should you require a retainer?
• How do you obtain the estate’s tax identification number?
• What if you have an estate’s house that can’t sell?

For issues like these, you need to have a network of probate attorneys to talk with. You should already be forming this network as you market your business (see post #2aof this series). I’ve even heard of one group of newer estate attorneys who get together every week or two for coffee with the purpose of discussing estate-related issues and sharing insights. Form your own group and get started. Everyone will benefit.

Lastly, join the estate and solosmall listserves sponsored by the MSBA. Read everything that comes across the estate listserv and pay attention to the solosmall listserv. I think they are the best benefit to belonging to the MSBA. Ask your tech person how to save and search all the emails that come through the listserves (perhaps through Google Desktop). This way, you’ll be able to access previous discussions on the listserves as they become relevant to you.

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So that ends our series. I’ve shared my insights on how I grew my own probate practice. Follow these tips and you’ll grow your practice too. You can do it just like I did. The key, like so many things, is to be consistent and persistent in what you do. A burst of networking lunches, for example, won’t cut it. Make a plan to accomplish one task each week related to growing your practice and stick to it. If you can do 2 or 3 tasks each week, great. But start with 1.

As you get started in putting these tips into practice, let me know how it goes either in the comments or by email. Perhaps I’ll feature your thoughts in future blog posts.

Be watching next week soon for when I post an e-book version of this series so that you can easily download, print, and share.

This is a bonus post in the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice.

Cross-Marketing

In the second post in this series, I explained that getting referrals was the key to making your phone ring with new probate business. I went on to explain how to get referrals.

Aside from referrals, there is another strategy to make your phone ring that bears mentioning. If you do enough wills and trusts over the years, you will eventually get a steady stream of probates (or trust administrations) coming in. Survivors of the decedent almost always contact the attorney who did the will or trust first. I’ve even had clients who thought that only the attorney who drafted the will could do the probate.

Over time you should develop an estate planning practice along with your probate practice. Long-term, this is perhaps the best strategy to make your phone ring with probate. Yet, even in the short-term, you will likely get some business from it.

Therefore, developing an estate planning practice is an effective longer-term strategy and one that you should do. But in the near-term, focus on building up your referrals if you aren’t already doing estate planning.

This is a bonus post in the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice.

In anticipation of our final post in this series, I’m reposting the follow from September 21, 2009.

How to set up your probate file

Probate cases can be complex and extend over a long period of time, so keeping an organized case file is a must.

Over the years, I’ve refined my case file system in a way that works for me and our staff and helps keep things organized and on track. When a new case is opened, I want a physical case file that is set up in the same way as my other cases so that I can quickly find things I need. At minimum, I have the following folders created and placed in an accordion file folder:

• Probate Filings. On the left, inside flap I keep a checklist of deadlines of the various stages of the probate and key facts about the probate, such as the estate’s name, the date of death, the venue (county), the court file number, whether the probate is testate/intestate, formal/informal, and the PR’s name, address, phone number, and relation to the decedent. On the right side I keep copies of documents filed with the court and sent to interested parties, such as a copy of the Will, the petition/application, notices, the inventory, the final account, and the statement to close
• Attorney Notes Notes and research items.
• Correspondence. Letters and important emails. Copies of enclosures and attachments are also kept here.
• Initial Documents. There is probably a better name for this, but I use it for things like the death certificate and miscellaneous documents a client may give me at the first office conference. I usually keep our client intake questionnaire here too.
• Inventory/Final Account. I keep the finalized Inventory and Final Account in the Probate Filings folder, but I store statements, appraisals, and other miscellaneous documents used to draft them here. This folder is often broken down into multiple folders for estates with a number of assets and expenses.
• Real Estate. Because there is usually a lot of paperwork associated with real estate, I keep a separate folder for this asset category. I include purchase agreements, appraisals, deeds, and closing documents in it. If there is more than one piece of property, I may keep separate folders for each parcel.
• Bank Account. We often help clients establish the estate’s checking account. Forms related to this are kept here as well as statements, and perhaps the checkbook ledger and checkbook.
• Creditors Claims. As claims come in, I make a list of the claims and keep it on the left-hand side along with deadlines. Supporting documents are kept on the right-hand side.
• Originals. All original documents go here, such as certified copies and originals of documents served, but not filed with the court (e.g. inventory).
• Tax. At minimum, I keep copies of Form SS-4 and the tax identification number here. If our firm is preparing the estate’s income tax returns, I keep information here until I’m ready to work on it . If we are doing an estate tax return, I open an entirely new file because of the volume of information that I’ll acquire.

Finally, if there is something that is urgent that I’m working on, I keep relevant notes and documents in a bright red folder that I drop down in the file folder. This makes it easy to grab, especially when you’ve left someone a message and they are returning your phone call.

This post is Part 4 of the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice.

Hold Off on Paralegals

When growing your probate practice, one of the decisions you need to make is whether to hire a probate paralegal. If you are new to probate practice, for now, hold off. It is a mistake to hire one too soon.

If you want to become a true expert in probate, you need to be involved in all the details of the probate practice right from the start. It is the only way to learn. Although the probate process is fairly simple once you understand it, probates can have a lot of nuances to them. This is complicated by the fact that each county in Minnesota has local customs that usually aren’t published. You can never really learn the tips, tricks, and customs to probate unless you do them yourself– start to finish. Moreover, it erodes your client’s confidence in your expertise, if you are constantly asking your staff questions about probate procedures. For example, you should know, without having to ask someone else, how long it takes a case to work its way through a particular county’s system. You learn this by being involved.

Another reason to hold off on hiring a paralegal is that probate practice is often less about the black-letter law and more about how to handle grieving, busy, and sometimes, bitter, family members. Even if you are an experienced attorney in other practice areas, managing people involved in the probate process is different. For example, consider the varying levels of sophistication your personal representatives will have. Some have business sense and are organized. Some barely know how to keep a checkbook. Some get along great with their siblings. Some have deep-seated bitterness and look at their new-found position of power as a way to enact revenge on family members. It takes time and a lot of probates to learn how to manage personal representatives “as you find them.” More importantly, it takes your personal involvement in the case. You can’t gain these experiences vicariously through your paralegal.

Don’t get me wrong: the right paralegal can be tremendously helpful. Some of the most experienced probate “practitioners” in Minnesota are not attorneys, but probate paralegals. Yet consider this: prior to dedicating my practice to consulting with probate attorneys, I routinely handled 15-20 probates at once (in various stages of administration) without the need for a paralegal. I used a secretary to help put out correspondence and handle various tasks, but I always drafted documents on my own and handled probably 90% of client contact on my own.

When to Hire a Paralegal

So when is the right time to hire a paralegal? Keep in mind that I never hired one, but the simple answer is that you should hire one when you can’t effectively handle the number of probate you have. If you find yourself laying aside probate work because you are too busy, or you are routinely getting confused about the details of probate when a client calls, then by all means hire a paralegal to help you manage the load.

Everyone’s threshold will be different. You’ll find, however, that if you create streamlined systems in your office early in your probate practice, you can handle a number of probates at once with ease.

For example, I noticed that I was writing the same letters over and over during certain stages of probates. So I worked with my secretary to create a “Form Letters” book. When it came time to send out Notices to interested parties, for instance, I would simply ask my secretary to prepare my standard letter for that purpose. This saved the client money and me time.

I also created a number of checklists for the various stages of the probate so that I could glance at my file and within seconds know exactly where we were at and what was next. This was important because I wanted to be able to receive a phone call from a client and be able to answer questions on the spot. You can’t keep the details of all your probates in your head, so you’ve got to be consistent in updating your notes and using checklists.

Finally, I kept a list of all my probate cases next to my phone. This list outlined key facts about each probate (e.g. decedent name, PR name, relationship, venue, date of death) as well as current issues with the probate (what was next, key concerns, etc.). I updated this about every 3-4 weeks.

So start without a probate paralegal and get organized from the beginning. Add a paralegal when you are no longer effective. Pretty simple.

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In our final post in this series next Tuesday Friday (3/12), I’ll share with you why it is foolish to start a probate practice without getting to know other probate attorneys. I also have a few bonus posts waiting to be published between now and then.

This post is Part 3 of the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice.

As I told you in last week’s posts, you need referrals from other attorneys if you want to get your phone to ring with probate business.

The best (and most profitable) way to become known for doing probate work is to become an expert. And it is easier than you might think.

What is an Expert?

Before I tell you how to do it, think with me about how people generally identify experts. What is necessary for someone to be termed “an expert”? Mainly, three traits come to mind.

Experts are:

1. Experienced in their line of work
2. Focus their line of work in one area.
3. Demonstrate they have authority in their line of work.

In summary, the three traits of an expert are: Experience, Niche Practice, and Authority. If you have all three, you are probably a true expert in your field.

Yet, there is another layer to this. Specifically, there is a difference between a true expert and a perceived expert. A true expert has all three traits above. You may not be a true expert right now because you don’t have enough probate experience. On the other hand, if you have at least one of the traits of an expert listed above, you could be perceived as an expert. Being perceived as an expert is sometimes just as good as being an expert.

I’m advocating that, beginning today, you can do things to create the perception in others’ minds that you have expertise in probate no matter how new you are to the practice. This is no card trick. I know that the word “perception” may bother you. I’m not at all suggesting that you should lie and pretend to have a practice you don’t have. In fact, you probably won’t want to claim to be an expert among potential referral sources, if for no other reason than staying clear of such prohibitions in the rules of professional conduct.

Let’s take it from another perspective. When I went to school for an M.B.A., my professors called “creating a perception in someone’s mind” the act of “branding.” Your firm has a brand, for better or worse, whether you know it or not. Your brand could be “excellent customer service”, or your brand unintentionally could be “bad customer service.”

Your brand is what your client thinks it is. That is, your brand is the perception others have of your practice.

For example, you may want your firm’s brand to be “excellent customer service” and therefore you have a policy of returning client phone calls within four hours. However, if a client expects phone calls to be returned within an hour and you don’t do it, for that client, your brand is bad customer service.

Again, branding is your client or potential client’s perception about your practice. The perception may be based on good evidence (e.g. “My attorney never calls me back!”) or it may be based on unfair standards (e.g. “My calls should be returned within an hour!”).

My point is simply this: you can shape a potential client’s perception of your practice so that you will be perceived as an expert. Doing so will help grow your practice as you gain experience and become a true expert.

How to Become a Perceived Expert

So how do you build your personal brand as an expert in probate? You start by targeting one or more of the three traits of an expert listed above (Experience, Niche Practice and Authority). Since this series of posts is on growing your probate practice, I’ll assume you don’t have a lot of experience in doing probate cases. Accordingly, we’ll focus on the latter two traits: Niche Practice and Authority.

Niche Practice

Creating a niche practice is simply the idea of focusing your practice of law in a narrow area. Probate practice is a niche practice, though you could narrow it even further (e.g. probate litigation, probates in Ramsey County, representation of creditors in probate, etc.). There are a number of advantages to focusing your law firm in one narrow area of practice. You can do a Google search on the issue and find lots of articles about law firms that have done it and their experiences.

For example, there is one law firm in South Carolina that has formed a niche practice in golf litigation. Another firm in Alabama focuses on pest control litigation (the “bug lawyers”). Before I started doing probate, I was making plans to focus my practice on business issues related to coffee shops and even went so far as to buy the domain www.coffeelawyer.com (I’ve now put it up for sale).

But for our purposes, the advantage of narrowing your practice to probate helps you grow your probate practice because it tends to convey that you are an expert in that area. Taking one of the examples above, if you were a golf course owner and involved in litigation over your course, wouldn’t you consider giving the golf law lawyers a call?

The point is that people tend to assume that niche practitioners excel in their practice area and have handled a lot of cases.

It also helps make you memorable. I learned this by experimenting at local Chamber of Commerce meetings. When I first got involved with the Chamber, I attended quite a number of networking lunches and business card exchanges. I had my “elevator speech” down pat. When people asked what kind of areas of laws I did, I would tell them “estate planning and probate, real estate law, and small business law.” The problem was that people I had previously met kept asking me this question on subsequent meetings: “What kind of law do you do again?”

What I learned was that if you tell people you do four areas of practice, the likelihood that they’ll remember any of them is small. But if I tell people I focus my practice in one area, the chance they would remember what I did was much greater.

So I changed my elevator speech. I told people, “80% of my practice is probate and estate planning.” That was truthful– I did other things, but my main practice area was probate and estate planning. What happened was that people started remembering that I did probate. In other words, I was creating a brand.

I don’t think you necessarily have to abandon all the other areas you practice in. But be aware that for every practice area that you market actively, you erode your credibility as an expert. Does it change your opinion of the pest control litigators if I tell you that their firm also practices in 19 different areas that range from the automotive industry to mental health and disability law? Hmmm, they are starting to sound less like experts already.

Authority

Another way to build the perception that you are a probate expert is to demonstrate you are an authority on the subject. Two ways to do this include speaking on probate and writing about it.

Regarding speaking engagements, find a group that wants to know about estate issues and approach them about doing a presentation. The goal of these speaking engagements is not so much finding clients, but building your resume to future clients who are trying to decide between you and another attorney. Having spoken about probate tends to lend credibility to clients that you know what you are talking about (even if the client didn’t hear you speak).

Regarding writing, the easiest way to get published is to self-publish on a blog like this one. In fact, my next planned series of posts is on how to start a probate blog. For now, I’ll keep it short. Blogs are easy to set up. Just go to a site like blogger.com and you can have a blog started in 15 minutes. Once you’ve created it, make it your goal to write one probate related post every week for 3 months. Tell others about your blog. Make sure it can be discovered by Google and Yahoo. Put the blog address in your email signature. When a question comes up on a lawyer listserve (such as the MSBA’s estate listserve) that you’ve covered on your blog, point that out. After you’ve been doing it for a while, make sure your blog gets listed with practicelaw.org, if you are in Minnesota.

The key to blogging is consistency. If you blog once every few months, your blog is essentially dead. Waste your time some other way. Blogs are about consistent updates. If you follow my plan outlined above, you’ll soon have a digest of your probate knowledge on your blog and people will take notice. Even better, the perception will become that you are obviously a probate expert because you’ve written so much about it!

Regarding getting published outside of your blog, the secret is that editors are always looking for good articles. In recent months, I’ve seen requests for new authors for the MSBA’s New Lawyers Section newsletter and the Probate & Trust Law newsletter. Write something good and submit it. In the past, I’ve heard of opportunities to write for Bench & Bar Magazine (the official magazine of the MSBA). Keep you eye out for opportunities and you’ll find them. If your blog gets popular enough, some opportunities will even find you.

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So that’s how to become an expert and why it is important in order to grow a probate practice. As you can tell, it is really a lesson in branding.

Next Tuesday, I’ll tell you why you should forget using probate paralegals when starting out and also when its time to start hiring them. Probate paralegals can help make your office sing. But if you get one too early, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice.

And if you haven’t already signed up for instant updates to this blog, you can do so by RSS feed or email. Remember you can opt out anytime and I never spam or give away your email address.

The Hennepin County Bar Association is hosting a CLE recapping the 2010 Heckerling Institute on Monday, February 22nd at noon at the HCBA office.

Details from the HCBA announcement are below:

Heckerling Institute Update

The Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning is the nation’s leading conference for estate planning professionals. The program is designed for sophisticated attorneys, trust officers, accountants, insurance advisors, and wealth management professionals who are familiar with the principles of estate planning. The Institute offers something of interest to every member of the estate planning team. Join us for a survey of the 2010 Institute.

Monday, February 22, 2010
12 noon at the HCBA office
600 Nicollet Mall, # 390, Minneapolis, MN 55402
(Third Floor of City Center in downtown Minneapolis)

1.0 CLE credit applied for.
FEATURING:
Mike Sampson and Marlo Turcotte,
Linquist & Vennum PLLP

To Register: 612-752-6600.
$15 for HCBA members. $30 for non-members.

This post is Part 2 of the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice. Because of its length, I’ve broken it into two posts. The first half was posted yesterday.

Yesterday, we started examining a hierarchy of the quality of the referrals you could receive as a probate attorney and, accordingly, which ones you should try to get. To review, here’s the list:

Hierarchy of Referrals

1. Referrals from other probate attorneys
2. Referrals from other attorneys who don’t practice probate
3. Referrals from other professionals, such as financial planners and accountants
4. Referrals from acquaintances and referral networks (e.g. BNI)
5. Calls from advertisements
6. Internet referrals

Today, we’ll examine #3 through #6.

3. Referrals from other professionals

The professionals that I have in mind here are mainly financial planners, accountants, and real estate agents. Of these three, I’ve received quite a bit of business from financial planners, so I’ll focus on them. There really is a lot to say about creating a referral network with financial planners. You’ll have no trouble getting connected with them. Just mention that you do estate-related work in a networking meeting (e.g. BNI, the Chamber, etc.) and you’ll likely have a lunch meeting set up before it’s over. Financial planning is volume work, so financial planners will eventually have clients who pass away with estate-related issues. Therefore, it is good to form relationships with these people.

Referrals from financial planners can be great with some caveats. The quality of their referrals greatly depend on the person referring to you. Avoid know-it-all financial planners: they will consistently give your potential clients bad advice and incorrect information about the probate process. The will create untold problems for you.

You want referrals from financial planners who are still hungry to learn and are genuinely interested in doing things right for their clients. There are a lot of financial planners out there, which means there are a lot of bad ones. Be discerning.

I’ve found it beneficial to focus my time, for probate referral purposes, on just a few financial planners, rather than a lot. This is different than if you are trying to get a lot of estate planning work, where more financial planners in your referral network is probably better. The reason I have limited my focus on fewer financial planners for probate referrals is that you’ll find there is a certain amount of education you need to provide the financial planner in order to get good referrals long-term.

I’ve also tried to find financial planners with a similar worldview as mine and similar approach to client service. Plato has been credited with the saying, “Birds of a feather, flock together.” If you work with like-minded financial planners, the clients you get from them will tend to be the same way. This will make your life easier.

A final caveat is that you need to make sure that your financial planners know your business model: presumably billing by the hour. This is usually quite a bit different than their business model. This is relevant because you can get yourself in situations where you are giving away a lot of free advice to their clients if you haven’t clearly established your ground-rules with them.

Spend the bulk of your time (maybe 60%) seeking referrals from categories #1 and #2. Those have the biggest upside. This category is perhaps worth spending about 20% of your time on.

We’ve discussed what I call the Top 3 in the hierarchy list. Now for the rest more briefly.

4. Referrals from acquaintances and referral networks

I want to save you a lot of wasted time. Some people swear by referral networks such as Grapevine, BNI, and the local Chamber of Commerce. They are probably great for practice areas like family law and business law. However, I have not found them to be very good for probate work. There may be good reasons to be involved in networking groups, but seeking a stream of probate referrals is not one of them. Be cautious about the amount of time you give to these groups. Many of these groups require a pretty hefty commitment of time. A weekly hour lunch meeting really adds up over time when you calculate driving time and lost time as you transition between coming and going. This is #4 in the hierarchy, don’t make it #1 in the amount of time you give to seeking referrals.

5 & 6. Calls from advertisements and internet referrals

These two really aren’t referrals in the traditional sense. But I wanted to include them on the list to give you guidance on how to rank your probate marketing efforts. Take another look at where you are spending your marketing budget. Include lunches and coffees you do with attorneys and other professionals. Does it mirror my referral hierarchy list?

The common mistake is this: you’ll spend so much money on advertising and you’ll get so little return. I’m not advocating abandoning advertising. But be careful that you don’t spend so much money there that you don’t have anything left to target the Top 3 categories in the hierarchy.

Having said that, note that my Hierarchy of Referrals list is based on the quality of the referrals you receive. I’ve found that calls you receive from advertisements are of much poorer quality than any of the 4 categories above it. People who call you that have no relationship with you or anyone you know (like a financial planner) may turn out to be good clients. But it is hit-and-miss. You can’t live on probate ads alone.

Generally, advertisements are more effective in lower-density areas in terms of population and attorneys. Attorneys outside the metro-area may find that ads work quite well. But if you are in the metro-area, unless you have a way to target a niche group of people (e.g. placing an ad in a church bulletin), you probably won’t get a return on your money.

I’ve found that internet referrals are the worst quality referral. By internet referrals, I mostly mean online ads such as Google AdWords. I tried Google AdWords for a while. Our firm spent less than $200 targeting specific keyword searches and we received a number of phone calls. Not one of them became a client. As a general rule: internet referrals are fickle and want free advice. They are often do-it-yourself people. If you get a probate through an online ad, be sure to get money up-front in your trust account and have them sign an engagement agreement, especially if your proposed PR lives outside your area.

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So that’s it. The best way to make your phone ring with new probate business is referrals. Follow the hierarchy of referrals to know where to put your efforts.

Have advice to add to the discussion? Share it in the comments.

There’s one more thing that I think is crucial for you to get more probate work: You need to be an expert.

Next Tuesday, I’ll tell you the quickest way for you to become a probate expert. It is easier than you think. In the meantime, I plan on dropping another Bonus Tip between now and then.

Don’t forget to sign up for instant updates (by RSS or email) so you don’t miss a thing.

This post is Part 2 of the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice. Because of its length, I’ve broken it into two posts. The second post will appear tomorrow

The Uncomfortable Reality

There is an uncomfortable reality about probate practice: someone dies before there is a need for an attorney to handle the probate.

It should take your breath away every time you get a new probate case. Someone’s life passed away and, in the wake, everything is different for the survivors. For many of us, this is one of the reasons we chose to practice probate. It is an opportunity to enter into the survivors’ chaotic world and help bring order and calm to their lives. It is an opportunity to help people rebuild their lives. It is an opportunity to make a real difference.

Yet the uncomfortable reality remains: every probate means someone has died and you must have contact with the survivors soon thereafter. You can’t possibly come into contact with enough survivors on your own to make a probate practice.

That means you need referrals. If you want the phone to ring with business, you need high-quality referrals to bring in new probates.

The Hierarchy of Referrals

But not all referrals are created equal. I’ve notice over the years that there tends to be a hierarchy with referrals. Some are better than others. Although there are exceptions, the quality of the referrals typically follow the list below, starting with the best referrals:

1. Referrals from other probate attorneys
2. Referrals from other attorneys who don’t practice probate
3. Referrals from other professionals, such as financial planners and accountants
4. Referrals from acquaintances and referral networks (e.g. BNI)
5. Calls from advertisements
6. Internet referrals

Let’s examine each of these.

1. Referrals from other probate attorneys

Referrals from other probate attorneys are hard to get, obviously. If a probate attorney in your geographic area refers something to you, there is likely a problem with the probate. Perhaps it is a conflict-of-interest or perhaps the other attorney is too busy or doesn’t have the expertise required.

But don’t overlook these referrals simply because they are hard to get. You may offer something the other probate attorney doesn’t. For example, I typically don’t handle probate litigation. When a probate comes in that requires litigation, I have an attorney on my referral list that I contact. Last year alone I probably sent at least three or four probates to this firm for probate litigation.

Think through your strengths and see if there is a way to maximize your “refer-ability” in the minds of other probate attorneys. Then start making connections.

Probate Attorneys Outside Your Area

Second, form relationships with probate attorneys outside your geographic area. If you are in the metro-area, how many probate attorneys do you know out-state, and vice versa? You need to build a network. Build a database of probate attorneys by county. Figure out a way to connect with these people and do it. A strong connection may not start until you refer someone to them. Even if you plan on doing a probate outside your own county, it will be valuable for you to have contacts in that county who you can consult with about county-specific customs.

What about probate attorneys outside Minnesota? A few months ago I got a referral from an attorney in Florida that I’d never heard of. Apparently, he heard about me through this blog. Don’t overlook this opportunity. Very few Minnesota probate attorneys are known out-of-state. Why not you?

It is tougher to make connections with attorneys outside Minnesota, but there a ways you can do this pretty effectively online. Start by following estate-related blogs outside of Minnesota. Go to the Wills, Trusts, & Estates Prof Blog and follow some of the ones listed in the left-hand column.

Don’t forget about using Twitter and LinkedIn to get connected nationally. Though Twitter has been maligned by many, it can lead to forming a network. I have referred a probate case outside Minnesota to someone I heard about through Twitter. There is no reason it can’t come your way too. Not sure who to follow? Start here.

2. Referrals from other attorneys who don’t practice probate

This class of referrals is pure gold. Surely you know attorneys who don’t practice probate, right? Good, make sure they know you do. Here’s the primary reason why these referrals are so good: attorneys know how to screen clients. If you get a referral from a colleague, it will probably be good. Call some of them this week and offer to buy lunch or coffee.

If there is one thing I wish I would have done earlier, it would have been to regularly meet with attorneys outside my practice area. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that non-probate attorneys could be excellent referral sources. I was running around networking in groups like the chamber of commerce and not getting anywhere. Don’t make the same mistake. Focus your time on what will bring in the highest-quality business. Here’s a hint: BNI and the chamber of commerce won’t do it for probate. Save your dues and spend it on a non-probate attorney at Ruth’s Chris Steak House or buy tickets to a Twins game and invite an attorney. It will be memorable and remarkable in the mind of that attorney. Isn’t that exactly what you want?

Tomorrow we’ll discuss #3 through 6 on the hierarchy list. Until then…

This is a bonus post in the series, How to Grow a Probate Practice.

On February 9th, I wrote about resources every probate attorney in Minnesota needs to have in order to grow their practice.

Here’s an extra tip that may seem obvious but is infrequently followed: Read the probate code. All of it. Regularly.

You can’t really learn probate without reading the statutes covering probate mainly found in Chapter 524 and 525 of the Minnesota Statutes. Unlike many areas of the law, the probate statutes are laid out very well and are easy to read once you have a basic understanding of probate.

Over a year ago, I developed a reading plan that would take me through the probate code each year. If you’d like to try the plan to keep you on track, check out my Probate Code Reading Plan post. The reading plan can be downloaded there. Although I have not updated it with the new statues added at the beginning of this year, you can easily make modifications to it in Excel.

Starting tomorrow: How to Make the Phone Ring with Business. There is so much I want to share, I’m spreading it out over several days. Don’t miss it.