soLo & sMaLLfirMsection: ourgoaLsfor2026-27
Solo & Small Firm Section Co-Chairs: SeanEstes – HoyerLawGroup, PLLC & JeffreyLieser – LieserSkaff
weaimtogiveyou practicaltoolsand supportsoyoucan competewithfirms thathavemore resourcesthanwedo.
As the new co-chairs of the HCBA’ s Solo & Small Firm Section, we want to welcome you to the 2026-27 Bar year and share what we want to accomplish.
The solo and small firm practice certainly has its own rhythm. You’ re running a law practice and a business at the same time, often without the administrative and support resources that a larger firm provides. It’ s also easy to feel isolated in our world. Unless you are sharing office space, there’ s typically no colleague down the hall to help when you have a tricky ethics question or need to sanitycheck a client conversation. That reality shapes what we want this section to do: we aim to give you practical tools and support so you can compete with big firms that have more resources than we do.
Beyond those practical tools, we want to build real community among solo and small firm lawyers in Hillsborough County, and not be just another section meeting on the calendar. We want our CLE programs to address problems you run into daily, and we want to solve them together. We also want to make it easy to
get involved, whether that means attending a luncheon, helping us plan a program, or writing for this magazine.
We kicked off the year on September 30 at a well-received CLE,“ Leveling the Playing Field: Advanced AI Practices for Solo & Small Firms.” We brought in two AI consultants who walked attendees through practical, ready-to-use processes for putting AI to work in their day-to-day practice, from client intake to drafting briefs. They also shared tips on transforming AI into reliable support staff for calendaring and time management.
We’ re planning additional programs for the rest of the year covering business development, marketing, and practice management. If there’ s a topic you want to see covered, please tell us! This section works best when the programming reflects what its members actually want.
We’ d also like to hear from you about the Lawyer magazine. Each section gets space in these pages, and we’ d rather fill it with articles from our members to express what matters to them. Practical, how-to pieces tend to resonate most with the section, so think about what’ s worked for you: a client intake process, a fee agreement provision, or a piece of technology that actually saved you time. If you have a topic you want to write about, or want help developing one, reach out!
Finally, we want this section to be a place where solo and small firm lawyers build relationships. Some of our best referral sources and sounding boards come from people who practice the way we do. We hope you’ ll make time this year to get to know your fellow section members at our luncheons and general HCBA events.
Thank you for your membership, and we look forward to seeing you in person! n
Authors: Sean Estes – Hoyer Law Group, PLLC & Jeffrey Lieser – Lieser Skaff
Interested in attending upcoming CLEs at the HCBA? Check out our Calendar of Events at www. hillsbar. com.
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