SEO-powered Portland law firm on expansion drive
Courtesy/Opticliff Law
From left, Andrew Kraus, Jody Wyatt and Ezekiel Callanan of Opticliff Law, a boutique law firm in Portland founded by Callanan in 2012.
Even during the pandemic, Portland boutique law firm Opticliff Law is busier than ever and even expanding. It recently added an attorney with a background in estate planning and corporate law and is actively seeking a real estate attorney to round out the team.
"We are looking fairly confident towards the future. I think it's fairly bright," said Ezekiel Callanan, who founded the firm as a one-person operation in 2012 from the "tiniest little desk" at Think Tank Coworking.
Today based out of an office at 123 Free St., the attorney team consists of Callanan, Andrew Kraus and Jody Wyatt, a Maine native who recently joined the firm after several years as a solo practitioner in Palo Alto, Calif., with a focus on business law and estate planning.
Opticliff, which also employs an operations and client specialist, was profiled in a 2018 Mainebiz cover story about startup law firms making their mark in Maine. Attorney Adam Nyhan left the firm last December to join Perkins Thompson.
Wyatt's prior experience includes working in-house as a corporate attorney for Fortune 500 technology companies, and as a financial consultant for a global asset management firm.
She told Mainebiz she's glad to be back in her home state, and at Opticliff.
"I absolutely love the culture here, and being able to bring my experience to the Maine people," she said. "I love being able to reach out to Mainers and help them with their core needs. It brings me joy to solve their legal problems."
The move comes amid an increase in Maine lawyers helping clients write wills during COVID-19, as people seek to get their personal and business affairs in order.
Web inquiries 'turning into clients'
Estate planning comes on top of Opticliff's other services to individuals and businesses nationwide in the areas of business law, trademark law and laws related to starting a business.
It offers many flat-rate services, and Callanan said that having a good website and search engine optimization has been key to staying busy during the pandemic.
"Our website has really good SEO," he said, "and people are on the internet more. People are finding us, so our prior work on our website and building SEO is paying off big time. Random inquiries are turning into real clients."
He said that Wyatt is a great fit at what he calls a non-traditional firm not just because of her business and securities law background, but also has a similar mindset about helping people.
Callanan said the firm set out to expand into estate planning and real estate, two areas in demand for which it often makes referrals to other law firms.
“The only other area that is really missing is litigation," he said, "but if we would ever bring in a litigator, then I would have to make some pretty big structural changes on the back end."
In the meantime he's actively looking to hire a real estate attorney with a book of business to round out the practice, saying, "If we found the right fit we could put the pieces together to make that happen."
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