Zohra Tejani (left) )and Joyce Tong Oelrich, co-founders of Tong Tejani. (Courtesy photos)

Back in October, two minority women attorneys in Northern Virginia set out on their own to create a boutique: Tong Tejani, a firm primarily focused on government contract work.

The co-founders are Joyce Tong Oelrich, who previously worked at Facebook, Microsoft and Bryan Cave; and Zohra Tejani, who has spent a combined 16 years in-house at Microsoft and VMware.

While business development cooled during the pandemic, the Tysons Corner, Virginia, firm is now finding its footing as parts of the U.S. economy slowly reopen—offering a window into how some small boutiques are moving forward.

We spoke with the founders about their experiences with Big Law, their firm's billing arrangements, client development in the early days of the pandemic and now and their take on diversity in the law.

The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Why did you decide to recently launch a small boutique?

Joyce Tong Oelrich: Well, let's just say no one predicted the pandemic. And so Zohra and I started talking about a year ago, and we were testing the waters: Should we go to a big law firm? Should we go out on our own? What was a good fit for us? And over six months, we talked seriously about going to large law firms. Pretty much every law firm that didn't have a government contract practice wanted a government contract practice. So we knew we were marketable in that way.

But in thinking about how we wanted to support our clients, we saw a shortfall with large law firms in terms of making sure that we could build the way we wanted to build and have it be valued the way that we thought it should be valued. I've seen through my experiences in Big Law that if you have an alternative fee arrangement—offering package deals or high value, efficient advice—you realize 100% of the amount of money that you bill. What I saw was that was not valued [in Big Law]. And if you don't value that, then that also means that you can't get associates promoted. You can't foster their careers.

And for us, that was something that we wanted to think about: How do we help the next generation and make and mentor them. We also realized we didn't need the large law firm name. That was one of our concerns was whether or not our clients would be willing to go with a boutique. We talked to our friends and they said, "Yeah, we would go with you." So we made that decision.

Zohra Tejani: To build on what Joyce said: We did think about going to an established firm. But again, we wanted to do things in a very client-centric way. Having just been the client, we wanted that flexibility. We wanted to be able to innovate and be creative and develop a trusted adviser relationship with our clients so that it wasn't just a transactional, by the hour kind of relationship, but really working closely with them to achieve their goals. So we offer a subscription service, bulk discounts, fixed fees.

We also wanted to be flexible. Joyce talked about the challenges in certain firms about billing and having associates. We want to remain agile, and so we don't plan on bringing on staff and junior attorneys in the near term. Our plan is to scale by using contract staff and partnering with alternative legal service providers and solos. So we really wanted that flexibility to be able to be super client-centric.

What does your practice look like? How have you developed your client base? And how did the pandemic affect that?

ZT: We formed in earnest in October, and really we considered ourselves in beta—using an opportunity to test and develop because we were doing things differently and wanted to feel things out.

We were getting some traction. We had some paying clients. We had a lot of interest and spent a lot of time working on proposals. There was a lot of business development activity in February and early March. And when the pandemic hit, we found out like everyone else that everything comes to a halt. Now I'm happy to say that later in April, we did have some of those proposals we did in early February come up again. And some of our potential clients came to fruition as actual clients with some paid work, which is great. So we feel like we've felt the impact, but we feel like we're coming out of it.

We think that, because what we're offering is in many ways different, that it is resonating. And perhaps because of the economic condition right now, we'll find those who might prefer to work with a traditional firm might be willing to consider a boutique like ours because of some of the economic pressures that some companies are facing. So we think that coming out of this or into this next phase of where the country is going in terms of the pandemic response, we're hopeful that we'll be really poised to take off this year.

JTO: One of the things that helped us kind of weather the storm is we didn't have a lot of overhead. We had always envisioned for the initial launch, and for the initial couple of years, that we would be working from home. So we got our home offices set up. We didn't go through that, "Oh my goodness, I have to work from home," struggle. We had already been there.

Also, ironically, we knew we were starting off. So we didn't expect to have income. So even though there's a pandemic and we had irons in the fire and they kind of cooled, it was part of the plan that we wouldn't be fully up and running. So I think that's helped us because we've planned for it.

Tell me about how diversity informs your practice and how it informed your decision to set out on your own.

ZT: We did factor in that as a boutique law firm that is owned by two women of color, we might have an opportunity to get on vendor lists for certain companies. If we joined an existing firm that's not on a preferred provider list for one of our target clients, that was going to be more of a hindrance than if we start our own boutique.

In terms of what it means to us and how diversity is a part of our boutique firm, it's a big deal for us. We have a whole page on our website dedicated to it.

JTO: From my perspective, I would have been OK going to a big firm, but I already knew what the struggles would be. Part of the reason I thought about leaving law was that I was the only minority woman in my office at a law firm. And it was very difficult. They did associate surveys to figure out why the associates were unhappy, and they did focus groups. They had a focus group of minorities, and it was just me.

So I had gone through that struggle, and I knew what it was like. I knew the older I was, coming in at a partner level, that I would have that power, hopefully, to make it different. But then again, thinking about what Zohra just said, it made more sense for us to go out on our own.

Diversity and mentoring and paying it forward for other attorneys of color is extremely important to us. We actively mentor because when I was at those large law firms, had I not found a mentor, I would have left. I would never have made it. And I could see how important that is to an associate. Everyone who talked about my mentor told me: "You're lucky because you have him; he has your back. He's your champion." You need to find a champion, no matter what. But as a minority and a woman, it makes it even harder.