Recent TU Law graduate Matt Day (’12) talks about how he and fellow grad Isaiah Parsons (’12) made their dream of opening their own firm after law school a reality.

The last year of my life has been the most stressful and exciting year of my entire life.   Isaiah and I began discussing opening our own firm in December of 2011.  We set a February 1st deadline for deciding if we would hang our own shingle or try to find an employer.  On February 1, 2012, we were in Basic Corp as Professor Arnold spoke of partnerships we decided to form our own.

After we decided what we were going to do, we had to learn how to do it.  Everyday we sent book ideas, useful websites, and potential contacts to one another. We quickly opened a savings account and put $2500 into it; each week after that (except for 2 months of bar prep) we put $50 a piece into the account. We set up meetings with attorneys we knew and anyone else who could give us advice. We read numerous books, though normally we split the reading to try to avoid overlap, and discussed them with each other.

The firm was put on hold as we studied for the bar for two months.  Immediately after the bar, we resumed our preparation of Parsons & Day.  We resumed our readings, meetings and research.

On September 7th we found out that we both passed the bar.  With the bar nightmare behind us, our dream was just beginning.  We wanted to open our practice the day after we were sworn in as licensed attorneys, which gave us only twelve days to find an office.  Our initial office that we had planned for fell through at the last minute, which ironically turned out to be a blessing.  We looked at numerous offices in a three-day period before we found a location that we both knew was perfect.

Getting a phone number was an ordeal.  We were told to pick our number, then told we would be given a “catchy” number.  Even after the actual number was decided, it took several days to get the phone to ring after dialing our number (kept saying number was unavailable).  Banking was also an issue.  Our banker was good at talking to us, but never timely. He would say “the account will be ready in 10 minutes,” and mean the account will be ready in 3 hours.  However, even with the hassles of starting a new business, we got our first client signed and had 4 cases to be signed by quitting time on day 2.

Now, that Parsons & Day is up and running I could not be any happier.  Granted, it is stressful not having a guaranteed income, but it is certainly worth it, knowing that I control my own destiny.  I am extremely proud of the choice I have made, and there is a great deal of gratification knowing that we built this.

Matthew Day
Attorney at Law
Parsons & Day, LLC