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Law School Students Get Exclusive Treatment at Amata

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Law School Students Get Exclusive Treatment at Amata

Amata is aware of how hard and costly it can be to get your law firm up and running. And for law students, if you want to be successful in the legal world, you need more than stellar grades and an innate knowledge of law.

The increasingly competitive nature of the legal marketplace has meant that attorneys need to make sure that all aspects of their business are flawless. And your physical workspace can’t be overlooked. In fact, it has become more important than ever before. After all, it can make a meaningful difference in your productivity and longevity.

Discover How Amata Can Help

Starting a law firm, particularly in today’s aggressive market, is no easy task. But Amata Law Office Suites is making it our business to help law students’ transitions to the legal marketplace easier than ever before. For any startup law firm that’s looking to grow, Amata can provide credibility and a more professional image, both of which are key to selling legal services.

Qualified participants in the IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Solo & Small Practice Incubator program are able to receive many of Amata Law Office Suites’ services at no charge. With our assistance, you can maximize your chances of success.

Instantly Jump Start Your Law Practice

We also offer a program available exclusively to attorneys – both those that are leaving the Chicago-Kent Incubator program and those in their first year of practice – specifically designed to financially assist new attorneys in getting started with their solo law practice.

Amata knows that the environment you choose to work from can have an instrumental impact on your success. Establishing a strong network is one of the most important steps to starting a law practice. Word of mouth will always be a key driver of law firm growth, so building up a network of attorneys, as well as other professionals, can help generate business.

Enjoy Immediate Access To The Features And Services You Want and Need For Your Firm

The legal profession is one that involves great responsibility in the handling and resolution of important matters in our clients’ lives. Trustworthiness and professionalism are a necessity for any attorney to be successful at landing clients and growing their firm.

Perhaps even more crucial is the workspace environment and staff on hand.

Take Advantage of Amata’s Highly Trained Staff With A Personal Receptionist

Having a polished office space with high-end finishes is an easy way to exude professionalism. Amata comes complete with luxury finishes and even a highly-trained receptionist to greet your prospective clients. We provide these professional reception services at no charge, so you can concentrate on what’s truly important.

  • Incoming calls are handled by a professional receptionist
  • Assistance is provided with any new client intake
  • Receptionist greets visiting clients and announces them upon arrival

Daily Task Assistance Made Easy

The daily tasks of a burgeoning attorney can stack up very quickly, and when you’re still burdened with finishing law school, coming up with the funds to pay for these services can seem overwhelming.

  • Custom call answering based on your requests
  • Personal phone number with voice messaging
  • All assigned phone numbers are owned by you and easily portable
  • Free document scanning at all Amata locations

Grow Your Practice With Exclusive Networking

Attorney networking opportunities can be the platform for taking your law firm to the next level. Working at Amata Law Office Suites with other attorneys is an excellent way to form strong relationships early on. You can establish mutual referral arrangements, share resources and information, and learn valuable lessons about marketing and running a business from other attorneys who are in a similar position.

What’s more, Amata offers exclusive networking events tailored specifically for attorneys like yourself.

  • Membership with 800+ Chicago-based attorneys
  • Social activities designed with lawyers in mind
  • Networking events and speaker series for professional development

Make It Professional With Bonus Access To Many Amenities

The daily needs of a law student preparing to start their own firm extend far beyond routine services. You need a place for working and meeting clients, as well as a collaborative and vibrant workspace. Amata has all your bases covered.

  • Access to all of Amata’s open work areas
  • Private huddle room and client intake room access
  • Free access to WiFi at all of Amata’s locations

A La Carte – Member Rate Services

When you need to go beyond the routine services and are looking for access to specific needs, Amata is your complete source. Amata Law Office Suites offers law school students the ability to gain access at member discounts.

  • Copier and mail machine use when you need it
  • Utilization of our paralegal and administrative team and court filing services
  • Access to our network of business partners and discounted rates

Starting a law firm is no easy feat. There’s a lot to consider, including your potential revenue and expenses, as well as the environment from which you work.

For your workspace needs, let Amata Law Office Suites be your ultimate solution. You can customize your plan today, and take advantage of all Amata has to offer. As a law student, it could be just what you need to get your firm up and running.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

Amata Brings More Opportunities for the Firms of the Future

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Law Firms – How Big is Too Big for Law Office Suites

Over the past five years, the landscape has dramatically changed in terms of what today’s practicing attorneys consider to be viable, and logistical, space for their firm.

Law Offices Changing with the Times

Traditionally speaking, law firms elected to have their own office spaces, which meant signing a non-flexible lease with a building. However, such is not the case these days.

Technology has many attorneys working remotely, greatly reducing the need for an office dedicated to every attorney in the firm.

Eliminating Large Overhead Costs

For instance, Amata has a fourteen-attorney firm here in Chicago where the attorneys reserve the use of our Amata offices in advance. Between them, they share ten offices, and because they are all rarely in the office at the same time, it allows the firm to keep their office costs down while continuing to grow their practice. The firm maintains an ongoing option to add or remove an office as the needs of their firm change.

Coworking Becomes Commonplace

We live in a business environment where coworking has become the norm for small companies and large corporations alike. It seems only natural that attorneys would want to adapt to this new reality and reap the profitable, worthwhile benefits of shared office spaces.

“So while the world around the legal profession is changing dramatically, few lawyers are making changes to the way they practice law.” – Law Practice Today

The old adage says lawyers are slow to change, and that may still be a true statement, but the firms that will lead the way in the future are quickly moving to play by new rules.

Shared Office Space – Not a Foreign Concept

In many ways, solo and small law practices have already been sharing office space with larger firms for years, so the concept is not totally new.

However, this traditional way of sharing space with larger firms can present several very real, very big problems for those smaller practices.

Traditional Law Firm Space May Leave Your Firm Stranded

The biggest problem is that you may get kicked out with short notice when that large firm you’re sharing space with needs more space for their own growth.

Trying to scramble to find a suitable place at an affordable cost that’s still convenient to your current clients as well as your own needs becomes increasingly difficult when you’re juggling a crunched timeframe.

Another downside to this arrangement is that the larger practice is focused on promoting themselves, not you within the space.

Traditional Law Firm Space Poses Problems for Your Firm’s Expansion

Another rather large issue that should be addressed is when a mid-sized firm takes traditional space with plans to grow. Normally, they will sign a long-term lease for more space than the practice currently needs with plans to add attorneys and staff in the future.

But when those plans don’t materialize as quickly as planned, the firm ends up playing the role of landlord, forced to find other tenants to occupy the empty space until they need it for their own firm.

In the real estate world this “empty space” is referred to as “shadow space”.

Playing Landlord Isn’t Using Assets to Your Advantage

Perhaps the worst part of this process is the fact that the attorney leaseholder rarely has the experience and knowledge of the market and therefore ends up charging tenant-attorney rates below cost, covering the balance with income from the law practice.

At the end of the day, are you practicing law to cover the cost of excess space? Isn’t there a better way to utilize this excess income?

Amata Law Office Suites Provides the Solutions

Amata Law Office Suites is office space designed specifically for attorneys, providing the comradery, connections, and atmosphere attorneys enjoy without the overhead for unused space and long-term equipment lease, reducing the risk of operating a law practice.

You Can Grow and Downsize Your Law Firm as Needed with Amata

As your firm grows at Amata you are easily able to add office space, controlling your costs and incidentally, being aware of your exact cost to add an associate or staff member.

If times become hard for your practice and you need to reduce, you have the option of removing office space to keep your costs in line with your revenue.

Amata Offers Perks You Won’t Find in a Traditional Firm Setting

At Amata Law Office Suites, we’ve been supporting attorneys for over twenty years, so we understand the things you and your clients truly want and need. These are just a few of the perks Amata provides that you won’t get in a traditional firm setting:

  • Lead and Referral Generation
    Amata places great importance on providing a road for your firm’s success. We host numerous attorney networking events throughout the year where you can gain high-quality leads that are often pre-qualified.
  • On-Site Paralegals, Ready to Assist
    Not ready to expand your firm’s staff yet but still need some extra hands on deck? The paralegals located at Amata Law Office Suites are incredibly trained and ready when you need them.
  • Professional, Trained Reception
    Our reception at Amata raises the bar for all others. Professional to the core, they greet your clients and screen your calls so you can focus on the casework you need to.
  • Exclusive Marketing Exposure
    Amata loves nothing more than to proudly support and promote our members. We offer opportunities that include getting published in Attorney-At-Law Magazine, guest blogging at Amata, and more!
  • Flexibility for Every Budget
    Why pay for space you don’t need? Add an attorney or staff member, add an office or workstation; lose an attorney or staff member, remove the cost of the space with a one-month notice. Pay for only what you need, when you need it, and increase your profits. Amata Law Office Suites features plans built-to-suit so you can run your firm more efficiently, including virtual and telecommuting packages!

Place your law office where it should be – with Amata Law Office Suites.

For more information, give us a call us at 312-741-1000, or complete the form below.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.

You’re a Lawyer, Not an Office Manager

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How many dedicated hours did you spend to become the attorney you are today? My guess is, more than you would like to remember. During those countless hours, were you also studying to become a property manager? No? Why is it then that attorneys continue to find themselves wasting time focusing on filling open law office space in Chicago for the building they’re leasing when they could be working on actual billable hours? For those in pursuit of a law office that allows you the time and financial means needed to focus on what’s important – the work of your firm – there’s a better way.

Consider the pitfalls of purchasing or leasing your own building (apart from the obvious astronomical costs involved):

1. Property Management

More than likely, the space where you house your law office also includes extra space not being used, and that space is eating a hole in your pocket every month. In order to stop losing money with empty space, you’re forced to become a property manager, taking valuable time away from your client work, and adding more to your resume than you have time for.

  • Advertise: More money and time is burned while you advertise your open space for lease.
  • Interview: Finding the right attorney to adjoin with your space can be difficult, especially when they should be someone you can look to for collaboration or sharing referrals.
  • Onboarding: There’s still time, and thus money, spent in onboarding the proper attorney in Chicago.

2. Reception

My guess is, you also didn’t go to school to spend numerous extra hours each week answering phones and taking messages instead of handling your client work and focusing your time on billable hours. If you’re a Chicago attorney in your own law office building, this is another detail you will have to handle.

  • Greet Clients: Someone has to do it, and if you aren’t putting even more of your income towards staff, that someone is you.
  • Field Calls: When you aren’t spending your time answering the phones, you’re spending it checking the messages.
  • Hiring Reception: If you do hire someone, unless you’re paying a sizeable wage, you’re likely to wind up with constant turn-over, causing you to lose even more billable hours in training new staff.

3. Revolving Door

You’ve occupied your empty space and are now, hopefully, at least breaking even on the yearly expenses for your law office space. However, there’s another major downside to leasing out space; no guarantee of your tenants staying. Once they leave, you must begin the process all over again.

The solution: Choose a Coworking Space for Attorneys instead. Aside from the considerable savings, coworking spaces offer:

    1. Pay for What You Need: Having a coworking space for attorneys in Chicago doesn’t have to mean losing your private office. In fact, you still get to enjoy a private office, but you stop wasting money that goes to the extra space you don’t use.
    2. Reception is Included: With Amata Law Office Suites, quality reception is a no-brainer. That’s why we include that service for our clients at no extra charge. Aside from not having to answer incoming calls and take your own messages, you can trust that the reception staff members are staples in our office spaces. We train and pay them well to ensure they stick around, and you and your clients don’t have to worry about turn-over.
    3. Network of Attorneys: It can be hard to find the right fit when looking for one or two other attorneys to fill your law office space in Chicago. Utilizing a coworking space for attorneys through Amata Law Office Suites allows you a large network of attorneys with which to collaborate, and we host regular networking events exclusively for attorneys to offer your firm the best chance of success in this business.

Make the move and start truly investing in your practice. Amata Law Office Suites provides you the ability to never have to worry about property management again, so you can focus on just being an attorney.

While you’re at it, check out why attorneys in Chicago are choosing coworking spaces over traditional private office buildings.

Discover our legal support staff for lawyers in Chicago.