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When Elefant was a student at Cornell Law

School, she said professors often spoke of

sole practitioners as something to be pitied.

A sole practitioner for �3 years, Elefant has

built a successful practice focused on energy

regulatory law and an expertise in renewable

ocean energy. She is also a champion of

small, niche firms and works to raise the

profile of solo firms.

Too many attorneys, especially women, leave

the legal profession when they have children

because they feel pressured to choose

between firm and family, Elefant said.

“If you’re unhappy with what you’re doing in

the profession, if you’re considering leaving

the profession, that’s fine; but you should

really see if solo practice might give you

some of the excitement or the freedom or

even the financial opportunities that you

might be looking for outside of the practice of

law,” she said.

Elefant intended to become a writer and

thought law school would help her craft

stronger, more logical arguments, which it

did. But she also discovered a passion for

moot court, especially appellate arguments.

Interested in public service, Elefant joined

the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission

after law school. A few years later, she

moved to a boutique energy firm in

Washington, DC. Like many young attorneys,

Elefant was frustrated and ambitious.

“I felt that after working for five years, I

hadn’t gotten any experience,” she said. “I’d

never argued a motion. I’d never handled an

appeal. And it didn’t really look like I was

going to have the opportunity at the firm I

was at because financially, things were not

going well for them.”

When the firm gave her six months’ notice,

she decided to hang her shingle instead

of looking for a new job. One energy client

moved with her, and her former colleagues

referred other clients. She picked up a lot of

court-appointed cases during the first few

years, expanding into different areas of the

law by trying criminal and civil cases.

She handled an energy case in the Court of

Appeals for the DC Circuit, and soon former

colleagues were sending her appellate work.

In addition, she did contract work for other

attorneys.

“I had done pro bono work very early in my

career, and I had represented a homeless

man in a dispute with a hotel,” she said. “He

had gone in to eat breakfast, and they kicked

him out. And I wound up getting him a nice

settlement. And he went on to move into an

apartment, and he got a job at the Better

Business Bureau.”

Because of that case, when people called the

Better Business Bureau asking for attorney

referrals, Elefant’s former client often

referred cases to her.

Attracting and keeping clients is the most

important aspect of running a solo practice,

she says.

“A lot of lawyers are really very smart people

who have gotten by and done very well

because they’re so smart,” she said. “But the

thing is with law, the smartness only gets

you so far because you need clients. And you

can be a really smart attorney who makes

partner at your firm; but if you don’t have

the client base, you’re always going to be at

someone else’s mercy.”

Elefant’s practice is about 70 percent energy

law, and the rest is a combination of areas,

from civil rights to criminal cases. She says

going solo is easier if you have a niche like

energy.

“Become an expert in something, and really

develop a client base, because then you can

call your own shots,” she said.

She started MyShingle.com to help solo

practitioners network together and to

offer advice to attorneys starting their own

practices. She also hopes the website has

helped advance the choice to become a solo

practitioner as a smart career move for

people who want control and freedom and

not a last resort. When she first started,

Elefant says many of her colleagues from big

firms presumed she couldn’t find another

job. Having her own practice gave Elefant the

flexibility to raise her two daughters and bill

hours around their schedules.

“Ultimately, in this profession, it’s money

that talks. And when you have that, you can

really do what you want,” she said. “When I

read about all these programs trying to help

women work part time in a firm when they

have children, the advice is to tiptoe around

and be very polite; and if the firm says no,

just listen to them. But my feeling is if a

continued on back

Carolyn Elefant, Sole Practitioner, Washington, DC [by Regan Morris]

Attorney Carolyn Elefant started her own boutique law firm in 1993. LawCrossing speaks with Ms.

Elefant about building a practice and about her popular blog, MyShingle.com.

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woman attorney has a base of clients, she

can write her own ticket. They’ll let her do

what she wants.”

Elefant says it’s never too early to start

building a client base and urges first-year

associates to attend bar meetings, write

articles for legal publications, and start their

own blogs.

“You can do a lot of things to really get your

name known in the legal community,” she

said. “That is really the advice I have for

anybody in the profession.”

With oil and gas prices so high, especially in

the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Elefant believes

interest in renewable energy will increase

and create more opportunities for energy

attorneys. She is particularly interested in

technology that generates electricity from

either ocean waves or currents.

Elefant believes gas and oil prices will stay

high in the foreseeable future and predicts

North American energy companies will

borrow techniques from their European

counterparts, who have been more actively

developing ocean energy.

“Ocean energy is the thing that has kept me

interested in energy and gotten me into the

renewable area of energy, which is a growing

area now,” she said. “It’s still something

that’s developing, but it’s very exciting to be

part of this emerging industry. It’s like how

attorneys working with dot-coms must have

felt.”