Tips For Young Lawyers

Legal Mapmaker Is a One-of-a-Kind Opportunity for Entrepreneurial Lawyers
By: Joshua Weaver

If you are practicing in a solo or a small firm and you want to learn additional skills that will immediately benefit your firm and help advance your career, then Legal Mapmaker is an essential program you won’t want to miss.

Spearheaded by Baylor Law, Legal Mapmaker is a three-day program featuring learning sessions, workshops and personalized coaching. At the program, attendees will learn how to design (or redesign) law firms that are hyper-efficient, technology-driven success stories. Dubbed as “ruthlessly practical” by Len Zandrow, executive director of the Justice Bridge Legal Center, the program teaches attendees how to specialize, utilize proper marketing, systematize their practice, and keep overhead expenses low.

Before attending the program, participants are encouraged to read through the Legal Mapmaker library of how-to materials. The materials are released in advance so that attendees can think through the information and come armed with knowledge and with questions for the experts.

The Legal Mapmaker program then builds on the foundation established in the materials, with speakers who deliver a holistic and comprehensive strategy to attendees. At the program, attendees will learn from, and collaborate with, more than 25 experts in 19 sessions, including workshops and one-on-one coaching. Topics range from business planning, marketing strategies, efficient (and vetted) legal and web technologies, to effective community engagement and how to find coaching. Attendees will leave with a business plan, a marketing plan, and a technology plan.

“I attended the program a few months after opening my own firm, and the speakers left me with knowledge that helped me put numbers on the board soon after,” said Eugene Haller, a graduate from last year’s program with a solo practice in Austin. “I won’t mince words: Legal Mapmaker will make you a better lawyer and a better entrepreneur.”

Baylor Law is grateful for the tremendous support it has received from all the other law schools in Texas, the State Bar of Texas, the Texas Opportunity and Justice Incubator, the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, the Texas Young Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association, and from the countless attorneys and subject matter experts who come together each year to make this program a reality. In addition to this unique learning opportunity, attendees will receive an estimated* 15-17 hours of CLE credit, including three hours of ethics credit.

TYLA eNews readers should RSVP today to take advantage of the $230 Entrepreneur & Community Leadership Scholarship (bringing the cost of attendance down to just $20 when attendees pledge to take a pro bono case within one year of attending the program).

*An application for accreditation of this activity has been submitted to the MCLE committee of the State Bar of Texas and is pending.

Joshua Weaver is the Legal Mapmaker coordinator at Baylor Law School. He can be reached by email.