Going Mobile
Boston Business Journal, January 21, 2001

Revere Personal injury lawyer Robert K Rainer was looking to expand his business when he decided to take the show on the road.

Rather than open satellite offices throughout the state-an expensive proposition if he were to go into many different communities as planned-Rainer reasoned he could bring legal expertise from his Revere headquarters directly to his clients for far less money.

After weighing his credibility against potential revenue, the man known for popularizing lead paint litigation in the state invested about $55,000 to buy and equip a mini-bus, and in June 1999, created the Mobile Law Office.

In its first full year last year, Rainer said his law-office-on wheels generated $425,000 in revenue, and the man named one of the most influential attorneys of the past 25 years by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, credited the vehicle with cultivating a third of the new cases brought into his law practice Robert K. Rainer PC.

The Mobile Law Office is billed as a way for clients to avoid the Big Dig and other traffic headaches. Staffed by a paralegal, the bus comes complete with a radio hook-up to the office, and can meet a client at his or her home or any other preferred location.

Rainer has trademarked the concept, which he hopes to bring national through a series of licensing agreements, and this past June, even added a second, smaller vehicle at a cost of about $30,000.

"As a moving billboard, it's a tremendous marketing tool," said Rainer, 38. "It's become the centerpiece of our practice."
Although Rainer's father, Ronald H. Rainer, now retired, also was a lawyer, the son's entry into the legal field was less a result of family influences than indecision. Besides the fact that he "didn't feel like working," upon graduating from Brandeis University in 1984 with a degree in philosophy and psychology, Rainer joked he was ill-prepared to do much else. "I had no choice but to go to law school," he said.

It was a fateful decision. While a student at Suffolk University Law School, the fledgling lawyer acquired some real estate in Lynn. When a young tenant in one of his apartment buildings developed lead paint poisoning, Rainer discovered his professional calling in the "untapped market" of lead paint litigation.

Upon graduating law school in 1987, Rainer joined his father's practice, assuming the reins about three years ago. When he detected the opportunity to expand the 25-person law firm about a year-and-half ago, Rainer hit the road. He didn't go without reservations, however. "I weighed my credibility against the business I would garner from doing it (and) I thought it would be tremendously successful. That's kind of how I run my career. If you don't take a risk, you're not going to get anywhere."

And indeed, Rainer said reactions among his legal peers often ranged from "disdain" to "disgust," and the mobile office even became the subject of a dispute with another personal injury attorney.

"It didn't deter me. Of course I'm human, but I didn't really take it to heart too much. As soon as it hit the street, we started getting phone calls."

One of those was from Jacqueline Adams, a client who wanted to sue a local hospital for an alleged medical error on behalf of her 83- year-old mother, but couldn't travel to Revere from her Boston home because she takes care of her mother.

"They came to my house because I have no way of traveling to Revere," said Adams. "They made me feel at ease."

Rainer has been talking with personal injury lawyers across the country and currently is looking for $3 million to begin licensing the rights to the Mobile Law Office concept. His plan is to grant one license per media market (Rainer will supply the bus), with the intention of eventually being able to market the business nationally.

In the meantime, the lawyer maintains a sense of humor about his creation, noting that although the Mobile Law Office has only been in a couple of minor accidents, he fully expects the bus will one day need its own representation.

"It's an unfortunate, but necessary, evil that eventually the Mobile Law Office will be sued for hitting someone," Rainer said.