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From solo to partner, the first seven days.

Article Excerpt
God may have created the world in seven days, but it takes much longer to transform a sole practitioner into a firm member. I found out the hard way.

My secretary was the first employee I ever hired when I began my solo practice. She was pregnant then; her daughter was a freshman in high school when I decided to join "the firm." She cried over the decision more than I did, but ultimately, I persuaded her to join me.

As we embarked on our excellent adventure, we laughed about (really) old client files we had never removed from the office. We tried to figure out whether there was any reason to save the WordStar software we found in the back of the supply closet. (It represented our first entry into the automated practice of law.) We hustled to get rid of as many unproductive files as we could so we wouldn't have to take them to the new firm and explain why we had kept them in the first place.

We arranged to have calls to our longstanding phone number forwarded to the firm. We said good-bye to the security guards and building maintenance personnel we had come to know on a first-name basis over the years. We sat patiently while the information technology specialist from the new firm copied and saved all our computer data so it could be integrated into the firm's computer system. Mostly, we valiantly pretended that this was not the most traumatic event in our lives.

On moving day, we both arrived at the office bright and early to finish the packing. We were leaving most of the furniture and taking most of the paper. The new firm was kind enough to hire movers, so we didn't have to handcarry boxes across city streets. Through a melancholy haze, we finished packing up our working lives. When the movers arrived, we left appropriate instructions and went to lunch.

Over a beer, the tears really flowed. It was like a funeral luncheon. The moment of truth had arrived. We could no longer turn back. The moving van was packed and...

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