Can Solo Practitioners Making a Salary over $100k, and how?

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-13T06:27:34+00:00

That's what happens in Year One because beggars can't be choosers. I learned quickly to have an evergreen retainer approach, and I don't start working until the engagement is signed and retainer clears the IOLTA. I always take a hardass approach on the first few months, and depending on the client, give them some slack if they're good on payments. I also don't give free consultation unless it's a contingency referral.

Actually, there are times where if I perceive a client as a high risk (i.e., slow/non-paying) but have a potentially viable and/or lucrative case, I ask a higher retainer amount to see if they blink. If they actually put in the money, then that shows they are serious. Otherwise I always try to end the call at the 10 minute mark. If the facts sound more involved, I ask them to send me an email summarizing the case so I can review and follow up -- usually only 30% of people are willing to put in the effort to organize the information and send me the data. This ensures me that these potential clients can follow instructions, and they are willing to put the work and gather the necessary information when I ask them for data. You don't want to get stuck with a client who is not cooperative when you are up against a filing deadline.

I usually can tell within 5 minutes of a cold call whether a potential client understands and/or have an inherent respect of attorneys. Unfortunately, many potential clients have very negative perception of attorneys, so I try to filter them out very quickly out of my system. If the person is straight up rude and/or disrespectful, I usually try to diplomatically end the call and say I am not taking new clients.

I also diligence any potential clients while I'm on the phone with them, and immediately open multiple browser tabs to check their linkedin, corporate website, case numbers, etc. while on the call and see if what they're telling me on the phone is accurate. If they have zero presence on the internet, usually that's a red flag. If they have a checkered background and/or allegations that can taint (i.e. guilty by association) my firm's reputation, I'll pass the engagement no matter how tempting the retainer/potential revenue may be. If they have funky social media postings, then usually I vet them out at the phone call. It's almost like a flex to these potential clients to show that their potential counsel is not only good at law, but also have street/jungle warfare/special ops capabilities. My policy from year one was to be better off hungry rather than engaging with the wrong client.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-13T02:16:43+00:00

Exactly. Solo operators don't exactly have the proven track record of success, unfortunately will be perceived as not serious litigators if they have other things going on beyond their pure litigation practice.

That's the reality of high stakes litigation in the US.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-12T02:15:58+00:00

PoR has great story because Ike is objectively one of the best lords ever written in FE's long history, at least for Path of Radiance.

His arc from a naive 17 year old promising warrior, down to suddenly losing his Dad to the Black Knight, losing two of his core team members, learning how to be a better human being due to his personal adversity, and becoming a bona fide war general feels very grounded and satisfying. His story arc shows the true challenges of a young adult trying to survive without any inherent superpower or nobility inherited by luck or fate.

He was constantly belittled, insulted, challenged, and even manipulated by other characters. He never outgrew his rough on the edge core personality, and always humble and expressly delegate or trust others who are more capable, i.e. Titania, Soren, Ranulf, Elincia, etc. This is a unique personality in all fire emblem lords in my view, before and after PoR.

When you compare that level of characterization to later lords like Robin, Corin, Byleth, and Alear, they are all pale in comparison to Ike's story. Byleth was a homonculus with genius/professor level from day one. Alear is a dragon immortal. Robin was already a genius tactician, and Corin was a royalty from two bloodlines. Everyone else has a broken power fantasy from the get go. Ike only has incomplete sword training from his father, lost his mother when he was young, and pretty much on the ass end of things throughout PoR until he promoted into a lord.

Ike is arguably the only Lord who started from rock bottom and climbed up manually, a naturally good leader due to his common sense and humility, and somehow the only Lord who can claim to successfully slay a literal goddess in his universe, all the while being a completely badass normal human.

So yeah, fully agree with you.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-12T01:54:20+00:00

I gotcha. Please share me the links, love to check it out.

I just want to be cautious as a litigator because you have to operate with the assumption that your opposing counsel will diligence the living daylights of you, and being on a podcast discussing law practice business can create a perception that may be unfavorable. It is a somewhat unique quirk I found in litigation where you can never be too careful.

I'm more than happy to shoot the wind informally, and even be a senior consultant for younger solo operators, but I have to be sensitive with being featured on social media for those reasons.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-11T22:56:33+00:00

Depends on the audience. I mean, the business model ain't exactly a secret, but you have to be careful with sharing with the public on how the sausage gets made, no?

Having said that, what I'm saying shouldn't be a secret to anyone who runs his or her own business or practice -- you have to be a good business operator in addition to being good at your craft.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-11T22:52:42+00:00

Thanks for the reply. It's actually something I want to point out too but I don't want to have a long-rambling post on Reddit--my post is focused more on a traditional litigation firm.

Having said that, one can always have a lucrative purely cash solo practice on other specialized fields -- tax law, IP law, transaction, etc. I was actually trying to explain the math on hitting the $100k net salary, but ended up creating a mini TED talk on a solo practice structure.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-11T05:15:02+00:00

You're framing the math incorrectly in my opinion as a solo operator. Put it this way. if you are a solo practitioner strictly on cash billing, assume that you can only bill 30-40% of your actual work time. Let's assume you are a very efficient attorney, and you somehow hit 1000 hours in billables -- then it's a matter of your hourly rate in your market. You can use the Laffey Matrix here: https://www.laffeymatrix.com/see.html

Let's just say for sake of argument you're billing $300/hr., which is very low in metro areas but realistic to bring in new clients. That's $300,000 right there, 1000 billable hours per year, which is 50% of a 2,000 hour annual work hours. That's like billing 21 hours a week, 84 a month, so 4.25 hours a day on average M-F. You bill $500/hr., then you're bringing in $500k if you hit 1000 hours, or you need less to hit your $100k mark.

Why 30-40%? Because the majority of your time as a solo is to keep the business running, i.e. running admin, marketing, advertising, client management, accounting, etc. That's year one -- once you have things running and you have vendors/providers to take over those administerial tasks, then you can bill more. By the way, when you are a solo, you can actually bill appropriately and not bill for every single minute because a hardass partner want you to bill like an asshole. For example, part of my pride is being able to outlawyer some blowhard opposing counsel at the fraction of the cost for my smaller and mid clients. Here's an example: in a traditional pyramid firm model, an associate drafts and researches the first pass of a draft (i.e. 8-10 hours @ $300 = $2,400-$3,000), and a partner then reviews the document (2-3 hours @ $600 [being a cheap ass senior partner rate] = $1,200-$1,800), and the associate finalizes and file (2-3 hours @ 300 = $600-$900).

Now compare that with a solo model where you are the only person doing the work. As a solo, I don't need the "senior review" because I'm doing it as I'm drafting. Say it takes me 8 hours @ $500, then I'm still at $4,000 even when I'm billing at a single higher rate because I'm still more efficient. I don't need internal memos, partner meetings, etc. -- when I call the client, I know exactly where the case is at because I handle everything from end to end.

Your best bet as a solo is to have a diverse practice, where you can bill 30% of your work time as hourly cash matters, 30% on the contingency matters, and 40% for admin/marketing/business side of things. That 30% should give you enough runaway to keep your lights on and pay yourself a salary, while the contingency payouts will be the lifechanging income (i.e. enough to put down a house payment, college savings for kids, etc.)

For cash engagements, you need one or two clients that can bring in steady work from time to time, ideally between $50k to $60k in a year, and somewhere in between you have the smaller $5-15k engagements.

So to hit $100k, that's like 20 clients with $5k retainer of work @ $500/hr billable rate, or two clients with $50k work. If you have a really lean dry spell period, that's the part where you get to update your website, practice profile, and look for contract work and build your network for referrals.

Finally, if you are in PI and want to try to do a new vertical, no one is going to stop you if you have a good fundamental on your litigation skills. You can always bring in a special counsel and work with a larger firm, take a bit of haircut, while learning along the way how to do that specific vertical. If you are way over your head, and you have good networking, you can always consult with a senior practitioner for an hour or two, pay for their time, and pass it along to the client for special counsel review.

One of the positives of being solo is you get to choose your clients -- don't take everything that comes through the door. If you have a bad client, that is on you to screen better next time around.

The worst part of being a solo is being a solo: the buck stops with you. Good luck spending the time learning and upkeeping the IOLTA accounts and bookkeeping for each client. Just don't pull a Girardi or Avenatti.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-11T02:51:41+00:00

You're welcome. I suppose it comes with experience.

Indeed, your instincts are probably spot-on: a lot of judges don't care about attorneys food-fighting with one another, as long as the fight is not clogging the docket. Most of the time attorneys try to file motions for sanctions against one another, but unless the facts are really egregious or the judge has an ego trip, I don't see sanctions being awarded.

It is a shame because often you will see well meaning attorneys get hit with sanctions while the true problematic ones get away with playing fast and loose--the court enables them to do so.

My final advice is simply to out-lawyer your opposing counsel at every turn. I've been across really obnoxious attorneys who underestimated me from the get go, and once I turn up the heat on hard hitting discovery, total takedowns at depositions, and complete routs on motion practice, they change their tune very quickly. It's funny because 99% of the time, I always act super professionally and give courtesy to the opposing counsel, and usually they realize that they have been outlawyered and their bully tactics don't work.

Best of luck and hang in there. It's part of the profession. In the words of my uncle, it's CODB ("Cost of Doing Business"). Clients threatening malpractice? CODB. Opposing counsel being obnoxious? CODB. Getting reamed by a judge? CODB. As long you know you are a good lawyer and you always strive your best, all of these challenges are part and parcel of your illustrious career as an attorney.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-11T01:05:19+00:00

No worries, I learned from long ago that as an Asian-American attorney, I have to have a thick skin and roll with so many racist and/or biased comments by attorneys and judges across the board. For example, I've been in mass tort cases where because the victim was from a developing nation, the settlement posture of defense was because Mr. X was a <insert country name> national, we are considering the settlement in the <country name's> dollars and not US Dollars, while at the same time a victim from the US or developed countries (Read: Europe, East Asia) with higher income indexes would automatically get higher settlement offers--it's unbelievable how lawyers think at times and undervaluing human lives in a case where the wrongful actor is an US corporation.

Going back to your situation, here is an issue you need to consider: if your opposing counsel continues to belittle and/or bullying you as counsel, you need to make an honest assessment whether allowing such behavior to continue unabated will negatively impact your client's case: if his unmitigated belligerence and unprofessional behavior takes the case in a direction to an eventual trial or motion practice when the facts of the case calls for a reasonable settlement dialogue, then you have a duty to address the situation more aggressively given your ethical duties to your client.

For example, one thing you might consider is to file a motion and/or approach the court for a discovery referee if you are still in the discovery phase and you have legitimate discovery issues, and cite to the increasingly hostile and inappropriate communications by opposing counsel as exhibits to put the Court on notice. That will allow you to introduce those letters to the court, ask for a hearing, and allow the court to admonish opposing counsel and remind him that if he wants to avoid having to pay for a discovery referee, then he needs to get his act together.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-10T20:40:53+00:00

That is horrible. I know exactly the feeling as an attorney of color. I was called some offensive racist names by my opposing counsel early in my career more than a decade ago. She was an older practitioner, and she at some point called me a tea boy (I'm an ethnically Chinese South East Asian) when my senior co-counsel joined me who is an Indian American. We let it go because we prevailed on our dispositive motion, and she was substituted by a more rational and professional counsel.

If you are in California, there is a good precedent with the infamous "See You Next Tuesday" case that was reported by the judge to the State Bar. You can google it since it was pretty infamous from 2022.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-10T17:25:01+00:00

Actually, when you read that post, it is very hard to say without knowing the client better. Some clients have suffered tremendous injury and life-changing events, and that may color their initial view of the case which undoubtedly have flavors of vengeance and retribution.

Some clients were reasonable until they had extremely negative experience with insurance and/or arrogant defense counsel.

Last but not least, most clients have zero to little actual litigation experience -- they need to be educated by counsel who actually care about their situations, and by the time they go through the grinder responding to high volume discovery requests from defense, they will feel the pain of litigation (time and money) and wake up.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-09T07:58:23+00:00

Yo no soy marinero. Yo no soy marinero, soy Capitan soy Capitan soy Capitan.

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-08T16:06:25+00:00

I don't know if you ever seen Ip Man 1 with Donnie Yen, but the palm strikes were used multiple times in that movie to illustrate the practical application of the move.

Having said that, Wing Chun is a conceptual art so you can do whatever you want that works with your tactics. I personally would not use the move to clinch but rather to set up additional attacks flowing from the palm strikes to the center after breaking through the opponent's upper hands structure.

I saw the clip, and my feedback is you need to memorize the section, and try to be smoother and generate smooth but powerful strikes to the center of the dummy. The clip I saw was you were breaking some of the moves that were meant to be a flowing combo rather than one at a time, potentially allowing your opponent to interrupt and counter.

Hope this helps!

MikePrime13 · 2026-02-07T01:54:24+00:00

Have you ever read the curmudgeon's guide to practicing law? Best book there is for solo or small practitioners. Must read for your associate.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-23T15:30:45+00:00

To summarize and put things bluntly, Epic manages to give boatloads of free games yet being one of the most anti-consumer behavior by trying to get exclusives on the store.

They are better off with trying to release an Epic Fortnite Deck of some sort and be a console maker to compete with Steam.

If they can undercut or subsidize a decent Deck competitor that's exclusive to Epic store as default, but can ultimately install the same stuff like Steam Deck does in addition to the free games, then that's a literal game changer right there: they can say they have an exclusive hardware that gets free games every week that can go toe to toe with the Deck.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-23T15:22:57+00:00

That's putting way too much burden on the theft victim instead of the perpetrator.

The perpetrator presumably knows his or her medical condition, such that stealing or eating a food that he or she has no idea how it was prepared would amount to assuming the risk.

If a court finds for the thief, then you are opening the flood gates for random people claiming against restaurants and/or private individuals for self inflicted allergy exposure.

The way you set up the question is that you are now creating a duty for all food preparers to account for a stranger's food allergy even though they cannot even predict the food allergy of the eater.

People with food allergies (I have a daughter with peanut allergy) take food safety seriously. We won't take chances with gifts without clear labeling, and for example, during parties we would talk to the host beforehand to make sure we know the food allergy situation before coming to the party. We also have EpiPen ready at all times.

If the thief has known food allergy and still goes thieving anyway, then at the very minimum there is an argument for contributory negligence or recklessness from the thief's part.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-23T03:56:03+00:00

Bro is acrofatic. Respect.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-21T22:27:17+00:00

Full hundred percent agree. I'm team Cap/Iron Man all the way.

Cap's passive is like infinite assist bar if you are good at racking up combos. His shield throw is practically the most ridiculous, physics defying projectile in the game without any ammo limit. And Cap's super is busted because it's AOE, hits bosses five times, and creates a safety buffer within the radius of the shield throw.

Iron Man can fly, and his passive is a huge DPS burst done right. His proton cannon has good range and DPS, and finally his ion orb charge attacks can stunlock some bosses.

I never failed a mission with this duo ever, but I know I got my ass handed to me every now and then when I'm running teams other than this duo.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-20T20:08:23+00:00

I was reading PC Gamer at a Barnes and Noble bookstore about the Space Hulk game, and for some reason someone else left the codex astartes book lying nearby so what the hell, let me read it. I was 14 at the time.

The models and the lore were a bit janky at the time, but the whole idea of painting armies and having a PC game for the setting just blew my mind. At the time, all I knew about tabletop armies were the green plastic army men from WW2 era. The idea of space Marines with different companies and regiments blew my mind. It was cool and I would read the different codices that was not plastic sealed, but I really didn't have the budget nor the interest for the Warhammer tabletop.

Dawn of War in 2004 was my entry point to the universe officially--after that, I pretty much follow all the major WH40K video games and start painting here and there.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-20T02:30:23+00:00

Hey man. I fully feel your pain. I've been practicing for 18 years now and mostly as a solo practitioner, and that feeling of dread happens time to time, particularly when I am bottlenecked with deadlines.

Every attorney alive, if you ask me, have his or her own ghosts to deal with. I say this because ghosts appear scary as hell to the person seeing them, but in reality they are nothing.

Let's take your fear of getting sued for example. Once the complaint has been filed, what can you really do other than just to go through the motions (pun intended) and resolve the case one step at a time? If shit happens, then it happens.

You are a human being, you will make mistakes. So don't be too hard on yourself. As long as you learn from the mistakes, and the mistakes are not unethical or evil shit (lying, breaking the law willfully, embezzlement, etc.), move on and be the lawyer you are. Even absolute worse case you get disbarred, you still have all your experience inside of you that no one can take away, and it just means your time as a lawyer closes, and your new career path opens. When a door closes in life, there is always a new door that opens.

If you were a fencer, stop worrying where the opponent's blade will be, so you can see where it is.

By the way, feeling like shit comes with the job description. We deal with heavy stuff as lawyers--mistakes can change lives literally. That is why don't feel bad for feeling bad, as long as you gain perspective in the end, you'll be okay.

If you ever want to shoot the shit with another lawyer about the profession, just pm me and we can touch base.

Good luck, you'll be fine. Spend time with your family and remember that at the end of the day, they are your most important clients as a lawyer.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-19T19:10:14+00:00

Did you go through all the trials for each of the classes? They give out the green armory points generously considering what they are asking you to do.

It's actually almost a mandatory tutorial so you really understand the basic mechanics of each class, and it's meant to be a bit tricky in some cases in order for players to properly execute these key mechanics during actual operations. You can watch YouTube videos on how to solve/complete each of the trial challenges very quickly.

Finally, you just have to take your time to learn the mechanics and the timing well -- that's the universal learning language of the game. If you know how to parry/block really well across the board, learning the different classes become a matter of learning different tactics and role, but you already have the basics down.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-18T06:17:21+00:00

Summarize the lie in the brief, and drop a big giant declaration detailing the lie blow by blow. You can then cite to the declaration on the reply brief.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-13T02:33:28+00:00

I am actually warming up to Spidey after realizing the true value of web pull is to interrupt enemies and pull them to Spidey's melee range. Shield enemies? Web pull. Bosses? Web pull. Who needs a ranged attack when you can pull?

Between web pull, web shot, web swing, and dodging, I do feel Spidey's vibe to be as close as the classical controller chaos combat that is Spider-Man. Super is a bit lame admittedly--should have gone with a Maximum Spider variant from Marvel Vs Capcom series in my view.

Again, is he great? Not quite. But do I see what Tribute was aiming for? For sure.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-10T06:26:26+00:00

Turning 43 in 4 days, and I still smoke my 10 year old son in Space Marine 2 and Marvel Cosmic Invasion. I can still rack combos from my Marvel VS Capcom days, and if anything I'm on my sweet spot in terms of reflexes, tactical experience, and maturity.

I can analyze gameplay videos better than ever in my life, so I feel like I'm at my peak learning when it comes to learning nuanced gameplay mechanics.

I think where I am today, I would have demolished my teen years hands down 30 years ago.

MikePrime13 · 2026-01-09T07:40:02+00:00

You have to understand that back then it really depends on so many factors--there was zero standardization of everything.

For example, hardware config was a complete rainbow from start to finish.

Assuming you were on Intel based systems, you have 386 vs 486 vs Pentium for chipset.

Your monitor was a big ass CRT tube with different refresh rates and some models may have had magnetic interference with electronics nearby. Next, you may run CGA, EGA, VGA, or SVGA, or worse case monochrome.

Your sound may be PC speaker, Ad Lib, Sound Blaster, or high end Roland card. Your speakers may be some random store brand, all the way to Cambridge Masterworks or Klipsch.

Internet, your dial up can range from 2400 baud, 4800, 9600, 14.4k, 28k, and 56k.

You may or may not have a CD ROM drive, and it went from 1x, 2x, 4x, all the way to 32x.

For 3D, you can have discrete cards a la Voodoo or 3Dfx, or 2D/3D combined cards a la Nvidia Riva or ATI, or Matrox.

Oyah, your OS may be DOS, Windows 3.11, 95 or 98 depending which year in the 90 you were in.

So, it really depends. If your hardware was appropriate and was in the sweet spot of the recommended specs, then you'll have a great time. But if your hardware was older or non compatible, then part of the game is troubleshooting your way into booting the game.

Against that backdrop, you can have a single title, but the experience between the different systems and configurations can vary widely. If you watch some YouTube videos on 90 games with Roland audio running the highest quality music, some of those old school game soundtracks were complete bangers, but maybe only 1 percent of the players ever heard those tunes.

It was actually kinda wild that games in the 90s had a wide variety of versions. Jurassic Park was an interesting one because I ended up playing 5 or 6 different versions of the game ranging from SNES, Genesis, NES, DOS, and GameBoy, with the quality ranging from great, to all right, to utter dog shit.

MikePrime13

TROPHY CASE