When Kelley Keller rented a suite in the Murata Business Center in March, she was The Keller Law Firm.
Less than a year later, she has five employees, the firm takes up three suites and her client base is 10 times as large.
Specializing in intellectual property law, The Keller Law Firm provides knowledge, protection and defense to its clients at state and federal levels.
Getting started
Keller moved to the Carlisle area with her husband, Christian Keller, now a professor at the U.S. Army War College, after working for a large law firm in the Washington, D.C., area.
"He's a native here, but we moved for not only lifestyle but business reasons," she said.
Certain she no longer wanted to work for large law firms, Keller did some soul searching before starting to practice on her own in September 2010.
"It was just me and my laptop," she said. "It became a real lifestyle decision. I said, 'I want a lot of flexibility in my life, a lot of control over what I do.'"
Around that time, Keller met Elizabeth Reusswig, a business consultant, while in the cashier's line of a Bon-Ton. Reusswig is now executive director of The Keller Law Firm.
"I was standing in line and the register wasn't working for some reason, and the woman in front of me was talking about how she just moved here from Washington and she was very busy and she was an attorney," Reusswig said. "She sounded like she had a lot on her plate, so I handed her one of my business cards.
"She called me a couple days later, we met and we've been working together ever since."
Service and success
After meeting with Murata Business Center executives, Keller and Reusswig put together a business plan and, in March of this year, moved into the business center. Since then, the boutique law firm has met with enormous success.
'It's been explosive growth," Keller said. "We found that there was a real gap in the presence of intellectual property attorneys in the small firm market. You have larger firms in Harrisburg, but for a lot of smaller clients, that's very intimidating, and so I found that there was a real need for my service, especially given I have 15 years' experience."
Keller and Reusswig attribute the firm's success to other factors as well.
"I think it takes a ton of guts, determination, perseverance and a lot of support," Keller said. "You have to have people around you who are cheerleading for you, supporting you and telling you you can do it when it's tough.
"I surrounded myself very, very thoughtfully and carefully with excellent people who do that," she said.
Self starters
Keller went on to cite one of Apple founder Steve Jobs' business practices.
"He hired what he called 'directly responsible individuals'... so that he didn't have to manage the people, but he could manage the process," she said. "So our philosophy here is that to work at The Keller Law Firm, you have to be a directly responsible individual, who is a self starter and can take responsibility for the things on your desk."
Reusswig added that Keller returns the support she receives with encouragement and gratitude.
"It's a great work environment," Reusswig said. "It really makes us feel like whatever small thing we may do ... it's important to her and to the firm, and that's really nice."
"I am genuinely grateful for what they do," Keller said.
No hurdles
A similar attitude towards clients is also among Keller and Reusswig's reasons for the firm's success, they say.
"Our business model is the client calls and they get on the phone with me," Keller said. "They don't go through secretaries, paralegals. A client gets to the decision-maker without hurdles.
"I'm bringing this really broad base of international experience and working with massive brands to a small firm ... in an approachable setting," Keller said. "It's the small firm pricing structure, but you're getting the experience that's born out of working with a large firm."
The Keller Law Firm is open from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
The firm can be reached at 386-5035 or kelley@kellerlaw.net. For more information on the firm and a regular blog on intellectual property law, go to www.kellerlaw.net.
for more information on these matters please call our office at 305-548-5020
Linkedin profile: http://tinyurl.com/linkedinpagemo
Blog: http://tinyurl.com/molawblog
"Turn to us when you need help"
