You are young and ambitious and have the plan to start your own law firm, for example, as a personal injury lawyer (Dutch: letselschade advocaat). But this is not as easy as it may seem. Because in addition to needing the finances to start your business, you also need clients. But how do you reach them, for example, a traffic victim or a victim of a dog bite (Dutch: hondenbeet)?
The advantage of being an independent and young entrepreneur
Many personal injury lawyers are employed. There is nothing wrong with that and the advantage is of course that you have a fixed income. As a salaried lawyer you have the certainty of a good income. But everything you earn does not belong to you; it goes directly to the company you work for. At a certain point, this is frustrating for many and the will to become an independent personal injury lawyer becomes great.
If you plan to work as a self-employed person, then a lot is coming your way. You need everything from an office to a website. The latter is particularly important for getting clients.
Required insurance
If you are going to start as a lawyer in the personal injury industry, you will of course need money, without investments you will not get there. But also forget to take out the right insurance. Because insurance is necessary when it comes to doing business.
Of course, you need insurance that protects you against theft and fire. For example, insurance is important to ensure that you can continue working immediately after a fire. And if the computers are stolen, new ones will have to be found quickly. But more important is liability insurance. Because as a lawyer you obviously do your utmost, you can make a mistake completely unintentionally. Your client then becomes your counterparty. The damage your client suffers because of a professional error can be enormous. Because imagine if you let a statute of limitations of a personal injury case expire. In the event of serious injury, the client can no longer claim anything from the liable party, and he will hold you liable for this.
How do I get my clients?
Do you have everything in order financially and in terms of insurance? Then you also need to know how to get your clients. How do you reach a victim of a car accident, bicycle accident, industrial accident or a dog bite?
In the past, advertising was mainly done in newspapers and dailies to attract clients. Word of mouth also works well, but if you are a starting personal injury lawyer, it will take a while before you have built up a good reputation and a circle of complaints.
One of the best ways to get new clients as a personal injury lawyer is to advertise on Google and to try to get as high as possible in Google’s search results.
By using SEO and SEA you can therefore approach many new clients. But beware, Google advertising is not cheap. That is why, as a starting lawyer in the field of personal injury, it is better to focus on optimizing your texts so that they rank as high as possible in Google.
