Future-Proofing Your Law Firm

I am pleased to announce that I have a new column in Law Practice Magazine, starting with its May-June 2013 "Professionalism" issue.

The column is Practice Management Advice and the first offering is Future-Proofing Your Law Firm.

There has been a lot of change and upheaval in the legal profession. This column outlines eight areas that any law firm, from a brand new solo practitioner to a large established firm, should review to see if they need to make improvement.

 

Twelve Ethics Tips for the First-Rate Lawyer

Legal ethics advice can sometimes be dry and off-putting. No one likes to be lectured to, especially about not stealing, lying or misbehaving. Oklahoma Bar Association Ethics Counsel Travis Pickens gives us twelve practical suggestions about maintaining ethical standards and improving our law practices at the same time. (I will note that I introduced Travis to the subject matter for tip #9.) Read "Mere Professional Conduct" by Travis Pickens and share the link with a first-rate lawyer you know. 

Five Takeaways from the 2011 National Solo & Small Firm Conference

Last week at the ABA/GPSolo National Solo & Small Firm Conference I sat in on some great CLE sessions, did a presentation with Colorado Bar's Reba Nance on Keeping Them Happy: Secrets of Client Satisfaction and was drafted for a non-singing bit part in the Oklahoma Bar Family Law Singers Ethics Musical The Perils of Pauline, which was presented at the Conference.

The folks from Attorney at Work asked me to do a brief essay on my five takeaways from the 2011 National Solo & Small Firm Conference and it was published today as a part of their Friday Five series. It contains some nice technology tips. So read it at this link.

Oklahoma Bar Solo & Small Firm Conference 2011

Next week many of us will be at the Oklahoma Bar Association Solo & Small Firm Conference at the Downsteam Resort near Quapaw, Oklahoma.

We have more choice in sessions than in the last several years. One of our guests will be Tom Mighell, longer time blogger and author of the new book iPad in One Hour for Lawyers. He will discuss several technology topics and even share the podium with me for some of them.

Another special guest is Sarah Read, who will be discussing client communications issues. While this will be my first time learning from her, she comes highly reccomended.

But we have a lot of great sessions and social events planned. Check out the CLE programming here and other event details here. it will be a great event.

The Attorney's Speech by Travis Pickens

Can you spot all of the ethcial violations in the relatively short telephone conversation in the attached article from Oklahoma Bar Association Ethics Counsel Travis Pickens?  Download The Attorneys Speech - Travis Pickens - April 2011 OBJ Reviewing this very short article might give you some good reminders about keeping out of ethical hot water in your client communcations.

One Firm's View of Client Expectations

I think one of the most important practices for lawyers is discussing client expectations and making sure that new clients have reasonable expectations. A client with unrealistic expectations is probably not going to end up as a happy client, no matter how good the results. Lawyers want to achieve good results and also produce satisfied clients who will return for more legal work in the future and perhaps refer other potential clients to the lawyer.

But one South Carolina law firm has decided to use its web site to make certain their potential clients have realistic expectations about the firm before they even schedule an appointment. Check out the Client Expectations (Realistic or Unrealistic) section of their web page. Some people may be put off by the blunt language with statements like "We do not work on the weekends and do not provide emergency numbers for the weekends" or "Do not think we are perfect.  We make mistakes."

But if you read the entire expectations page, there is a good deal of good general advice about family law. It seems like they have made a strategic decision to say "If you are going to a high maintenance client, you're probably not going to be happy with us and we're probably not going to be happy with you."  Read it and judge for yourself. But one thing is certain. They have achieved the distinction of not having the same content of every other law firm's web site.

Hot Legs(?) and Customer Service

Dan Hull, on his What About Clients?™ blog, featured a Rod Stewart video with his post Hot Legs: Great--and Enduring--Customer Service Sites. I am honored that he included my blog in a fairly long list of blogs that "feature useful models, ideas, best practices and tips on effective customer service" in Dan's words. Check out these blogs, which include many of my "must read" blogs.

This morning a number of new Oklahoma lawyers are being sworn in as new lawyers. Some of them have jobs, but too many still do not. On the next two Tuesdays, some of them attend a program called Opening Your Law Practice, which is provided as a free service from the Oklahoma Bar Association. One of the messages that they will hear from me is about providing great client service. Most lawyers do their jobs well. One of the distinguishing factors between lawyers is superior client service. Whether your clients will refer others to you, "dis" you or just forget about you after their matter is over depends more on their perception of how they were treated than on any other factor. Doing great legal work in the mimimum requirement. But for you to succeed with your future plans and goals, all of your clients should receive courteous, timely service. They should clearly understand what is happening with their matter as free of legal jargon as possible. They should be regularly informed of the status of their matter. And they should know that you care about them and their matter.

A Traditionalist's Response to Virtual Law Practices

Yesterday I did a blog post Virtual Law Offices are Becoming a Real-World Alternative that outlined the case for virtual law practices. The same day, Sharon Nelson and John W. Simek posted an article called The Virtual Lawyer Stampede that is worthwhile reading as well.  But today I want to point you to an article "This Isn't Your Father's Law Firm"–But Maybe It Should Be whose author, Victor J. Medina, believes that virtual law practices (and unbundled legal services generally) stand for some of the worst possible things to happen to our profession.

The interesting thing is that, having spent a good amount of time as an "old school" lawyer myself, I don't disagree with a lot of what he has to say. You really should read his article. His primary point can be found in this quote from the article: "A lawyer’s value is not just in the deliverables or the court appearance that he or she makes, but in the ability to think through a problem, to counsel a client, or to strategize alongside a client for the client's benefit." He goes on to add that long-term relationships with clients where they are encouraged to have annual reviews at modest fees are good for the lawyer and client. I don't know of any good lawyer who would disagree that attorney-client relationships are critical and most important in our profession.

He also notes his long-term clients may expect to get a better deal on some services than a walk-in client. That seems totally appropriate to me on several levels, including the fact that the long-term, frequently reviewed client will be easier to work with. I made the comment to some new friends in New Mexico recently that rather than cutting a fee for a business formation to be competitive, why not add more value? Don't just set up the business formation paperwork, but give them a handbook on how to run a business in your state, a calendar of all important dates for filing dates during the next two years and tell them they can have an appointment with you twice during the next year for up to one hour of advice for only $20 each time. Offer to do their minutes or other annual documents for a modest annual fee. Maybe you can develop what looked like a one-time transaction into a long term relationship that will be better for you both.

But I do disagree with Mr. Medina's implication that a virtual lawyer cannot develop a client relationship over the Internet. Our great-grandparents would have probably said you couldn't develop relationships over the telephone and yet, every lawyer likely spends more time with clients on the phone than in person today. Future generations may read a text message from their lawyer, chuckle and think "my lawyer's pretty funny" without it ever occurring to the client that they have never met face to face. Mr. Medina and I will probably always believe in that face to face contact. But we cannot forecast what the new generation, nurtured on text messages and never having known a world without the Internet will think. Perhaps the lawyer they spend less time with is the best for them as they set their schedules. Perhaps that will be a loss for lawyer and client.

Personally I tend to think that video conferencing is the game changer in this. Seeing the lawyer's expressions as they listen to you and talk to you will be more "personal" than a phone call. We anticipate that better monitors, faster Internet connections, more phones that video conference and more webcams in homes will improve this. And it is already about as easy to send them a document online as to slide it across your desk.

The most important lesson for young lawyers is that there are now many choices available on how you want to serve your clients. But you cannot do everything--at least not all at the same time. Do what is comfortable for you and good for your clients. The rest should work out fine.

Some Thoughts on Lawyers Returning Phone Calls

A recent blog post about why lawyers don't return client calls sort of rubbed me the wrong way. That was the intention of the poster to a certain extent as he indicated many prior treatments of the topic were sugar coated. The post was entertaining and provocative, but I wasn't inclined to pass it along to others.

Well, leave it to my honorary cousin, Laura Calloway of the Alabama State Bar, to pull out some key points from this post for a responsive post of her own: Maybe Your Lawyer is Drunk? She makes some good points and shows her good humor on the topic. She also includes a link to the original post.

I often talk to young lawyers about the importance of returning client phone calls. The failure to do this promptly creates larger problems than may actually be justified. Many clients have no idea how many calls a lawyer may receive daily. So they may take the non-return as personal when the lawyer is simply applying triage by returning the priority calls first. Calls about a matter when nothing is scheduled this month or when the client wants to repeat the same conversation for the third time this week get a lower priority than some others. Clients rely on lawyers to handle things that they cannot. So the "failure" of the lawyer to do something simple that anyone can do raises concerns about how everything else is being handled.

The successful lawyer will have a written policy on how quickly calls will be returned, cover that policy with new clients when new matters are opened and make certain law firm staff understands that their job is to help return calls when the lawyer is unable to do so. It is always better for the client to hear from the staff than to hear nothing.

Cousin Laura and I agree on one thing for sure. Return those phone calls and stay out of trouble.

Matt Homann's E-book: Thinking About Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less

Bob Ambrogi once called Matt Homann the "Confucius of the legal profession." 

I've known Matt for several years, so long ago that it was back when his blog, the [non]billable hour, used to discuss alternative billing. I congratulated Bob on that characterization because Matt does provide a lot of information in a form that would fit perfectly if you read it after cracking open Fortune Cookie [Lawyer's Edition.]

So it is no surprise to learn that Matt loves Twitter with its 140 character limit. Yes, Matt tweets -- a lot. But for those of you who don't follow Matt on Twitter, (Matt would want me to add -- yet!) he has summarized his 100 favorite tweets about law practice into a free e-book: Thinking About Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less. Some are fun. Many are insightful. But you cannot read all 100 without thinking seriously about your law practice client service model. One Sample: "Firing bad clients doesn’t put them out of their misery, but it puts them out of yours."

Enjoy!