Every bar association in the country publishes a business plan template, and I've now read a good number of them.
They're thorough. They have sections on mission statements and competitive analysis and marketing strategy, and they run to twenty pages. They are also, for an attorney about to go out on her own, close to useless — not because the advice is wrong, but because they're answering a question nobody asked.
A business plan written for a bank is a document. A business plan written for yourself is a decision.
The attorneys I've watched launch successfully didn't produce twenty pages. Most of them worked out four numbers on a legal pad, stared at the fourth one for a while, and then either went or didn't.
In full disclosure: I rent offices and provide support staff to law firms, so one of those numbers eventually involves me. The other three don't.
Do you need a business plan to start a law firm?
Only if you're borrowing money. If you're funding it yourself, what you need is four numbers and the honesty to look at them. A formal plan is a document written to persuade somebody else. The exercise that actually matters is working out whether the arithmetic closes.
If you are seeking a loan or a line of credit, write the full document — your lender will want the sections the templates describe.
Everyone else is writing a plan because they've been told to, and the writing substitutes for the thinking.
What is a solo's business plan actually for?
To find out, before you commit, whether the money arrives before it runs out. That's the whole question. Everything else in a standard template is either a restatement of what you already know or a guess dressed up as analysis.
You know your practice area. You know roughly who your clients are. You've been doing this work, usually for years.
What you don't know is the timing. How much you'll bill in month three, how much of that you'll collect in month five, and whether your savings cover the gap. That's not a mission statement problem.
Number one: what will you actually bill?
Take your realistic hourly rate, multiply by billable hours you'll genuinely work, and then cut the result — because almost nobody bills what they plan to in year one. Clio's research has consistently found solo practitioners capturing around 2.9 billable hours in an eight-hour day, roughly 37%.
That figure surprises attorneys who've only worked in firms, where someone else handled intake, collections, conflicts, and the phone.
On your own you are also the receptionist, the biller, the filer and the marketer. The 37% isn't laziness. It's what's left when one person does all the jobs.
So if you're planning on 1,500 billable hours in year one because that's what you did as an associate, halve it and see whether the number still works. If it does, you have a practice. If it only works at 1,500, you don't have a plan — you have a hope.
This is also the number that moves most when you buy support. Not because anyone works harder, but because the hours you spend chasing records and answering the phone are hours you aren't billing.
Number two: what will you collect, and when?
Billing is not revenue. Collection realisation for small firms typically runs well below 100%, and the lag between work performed and cash received is where practices die. You do the work in March, invoice in April, get paid in June, and your landlord doesn't care about any of that.
Two things to work out honestly.
What proportion will you actually collect? Some clients don't pay. Some pay late enough that you write it off. Some matters settle in ways that change the fee.
And what's the lag? Hourly practice collects slowest. Flat fee collects faster if you take money up front. Contingency collects in lumps, possibly eighteen months out, which is why personal injury practices live or die on runway rather than billing.
Number three: what does it cost to run?
For most solos this is the smallest and most predictable of the four, and it's the one people spend the most time on. Illinois compliance is $385 a year, or nothing if you were admitted since 2025. Forming a PLLC adds $275 in year one and isn't required. Software runs about $1,400, space from $69 a month.
The full arithmetic is in the cost breakdown, with four worked scenarios.
The reason this gets disproportionate attention is that it's the only one of the four you can look up. The other three require you to be honest about yourself, which is harder than research.
Number four: how long can you go without income?
This is the number that decides whether the practice survives, and it's the one every template mentions in a single line. Enough cash or credit to cover startup costs plus six to twelve months of business expenses — and your personal expenses. Mortgage, groceries, insurance, school fees.
Write that number down. It will be larger than everything else on the page combined.
And it's where two attorneys with identical practice areas have completely different answers. If you're leaving a firm with clients who will follow you, revenue starts in month one and you may need very little runway. If you're starting cold, you need all twelve months, and no amount of optimism about month four changes it.
The attorneys I've watched struggle were almost never the ones who spent too much on an office. They were the ones who ran out of money in month seven, with work in the pipeline that hadn't paid yet.
What should you skip?
The mission statement, the competitive analysis, the five-year projection, and the SWOT. Not because they're worthless in principle, but because for a one-person law firm they produce confident-looking pages containing no information you didn't already have before you started writing them.
Your competitive analysis is that there are a lot of lawyers in Chicago and some of them are good. Your five-year projection is a guess multiplied by itself five times.
Skip them. Spend the time on the collection lag instead — it's harder, less satisfying, and considerably more useful.
One exception. If you're pitching a lateral move or a partnership rather than going solo, the formal document matters, because the audience is other people. Different exercise entirely.
What about Illinois specifically?
Form a PLLC, not an LLC — Illinois has required licensed professionals to use a professional limited liability company since August 2018. Several of the generic Illinois LLC guides ranking for law firm queries will walk you into the wrong entity.
The rest of the Illinois mechanics — ARDC registration, IOLTA setup, the Cook County attorney number, e-filing — are covered in detail here.
Two Illinois-specific things worth putting in your numbers: ISBA membership is free in your first year after admission and includes vLex Fastcase, which sells standalone at $695. And malpractice insurance isn't required here, though ISBA Mutual reports the average cost of defending a meritless claim at around $28,000 — so the under-$1,000 first-year premium is the cheapest risk transfer you'll ever buy.
Frequently asked questions
Only if you are borrowing money. A lender will want the full document with the sections bar association templates describe. If you are self-funding, what you need is four numbers — projected billings, collection rate and lag, operating costs, and personal runway — and the honesty to look at them.
Realistic billable hours rather than aspirational ones, a collection rate and payment lag, operating costs including compliance and space, and the number of months you can go without income. Mission statements, SWOT analyses and five-year projections add length without adding information.
Fewer than you billed as an associate. Clio's research has consistently found solos capturing around 2.9 billable hours in an eight-hour day, roughly 37%, because the same person handles intake, billing, conflicts and the phone. Plan on that, not on firm-level utilisation.
Treating runway as a line item rather than the central question. Most templates mention operating reserves in a sentence. It is larger than every other figure combined and it is what separates practices that survive from ones that close with work still in the pipeline.
Credible guidance calls for startup costs plus six to twelve months of both business and personal expenses. The real answer depends entirely on whether clients follow you. An attorney with a portable book may need very little; one starting cold needs the full twelve months.
A PLLC. Illinois has required licensed professionals to use a professional limited liability company since August 2018, and existing LLCs had to amend. Generic Illinois LLC formation guides, several of which rank for law firm queries, direct attorneys to the wrong entity type.
Several state bars publish them — the New York City Bar, the Florida Bar through LegalFuel, Oregon's Professional Liability Fund, Louisiana and Colorado among them. They are thorough and written for lenders. Useful if you are borrowing; largely ceremonial if you are not.
It is the proportion of billed work you actually collect, and the lag between performing work and receiving payment. Billing is not revenue. A practice can be busy, profitable on paper, and still fail because the money arrives two months after the expenses do.
The fourth number
I've sat across from a lot of attorneys who were about to do this, and the conversation has a shape.
They want to talk about the first number — what they'll bill — because it's the exciting one, and because they've usually already done the maths in their head several times on the drive in.
By the time we get to the fourth number, the energy in the room has changed.
That's not a reason to avoid it. It's the entire reason to do the exercise. The point of working out your runway isn't to talk yourself out of going solo. It's to go in knowing where the edge is, so that in month seven you're making a decision rather than discovering one.
The attorneys who do that are the ones still practising three years later.
Questions about any of this? 312.924.0200 or [email protected].
Ron Bockstahler is the founder and CEO of Amata Law Office Suites, a vendor member of the Chicago Bar Association, supporting Chicago-area law firms since 2002. He co-hosts The 1958 Lawyer podcast.
Amata Law Office Suites is not a law firm and does not provide legal services to the general public. This article is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice.
