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.

 

How many does it take to change a light bulb?

Q. How many ministers does it take to change a light bulb?

A. It depends on whether the light bulb is really willing to change!

The same is true for lawyers and law firms.

I've been knee-deep in reviewing materials on change, particularly lawyer and law firm change, for a few months now for a project I cannot blog about just yet. But today several features about change crossed my Twitter feed and appeared in my inbox today. So, lawyers, if you have the time to think about your future this week, here are some resources for you.

No one is more surprised than me that I am leading off with words from a law school faculty member on change. (It is not like most law schools have been rushing to embrace needed changes.) But Frank H. Wu,  Chancellor and Dean of UC Hastings College of the Law has an opinion piece titled What Threatens Law Firms that is short, cogent and, in my opinion, spot on. (Not that the good chancellor needs my approval.) You might quibble with a detail or two, but he certainly isolates some of the issues our profession faces.

A blog post from Bob Ambrogi led me to this video on Guide to Change Management at Law Firms.

You can check out the credentials of the panelists at Bob's blog post. But let me attest, as someone who has seen a fair number of discussions on change management, this one is very good. (And nothing against the appearance of the fine panelists, but you can listen to this one hour program without having to watch the video the entire time.)

I didn't get to attend the recent ReInvent Law™ conference in Silicon Valley or the previous events. But Daniel Martin Katz, assistant professor at Michigan State's School of Law and one of the conference organizers, garnered some publicity afterwards when he was quoted  by announcing at another event, "I'm developing a group of assassins who are going to [reform] the profession." You can stop by the ReInvent Law™ Laboratory website to see new developments.

Richard Susskind, author of The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the nature of legal services has just released a new book called Tomorrow's Lawyers: An Introduction to Your Future. I'll be writing more about that when I complete it, but don't let my busy schedule delay you from purchasing this affordable new resource.

The point is not really whether a light bulb or a law firm wants to change. We rely on precedent for the law and have a comfort level with doing things as they have always been done. The question is whether your law firm is one that recognizes the need to change.

The Stress-Free Law Practice

Does the label "The Stress-Free Law Practice" make you think of unicorns, vampires and other mythical things? Many, if not most, lawyers believe that a large amount of stress just goes along with the important matters that law firms are handling.

Read The Stress-Free Law Practice, my column this month in the Oklahoma Bar Journal, to get some facts about stress and mental health issues in the legal profession. I've included a number of tips from a mental health professional about how lawyers can deal with stress.

What I am Reading Today (Legal Ethics and Money)

I know "what I'm reading" is not a great title for a blog post. But I've noted a lot of good reading material that I wanted to pass along to you today.

Law Society of British Columbia's Cloud Computing Checklist Lawyers are quite correctly concerned about cloud computing because law practices deal with confidential client. But life is not risk-free and it is more a matter of balancing risks than eliminating them. This quite comprehensive checklist is the product of much obvious hard work and a worthwhile download for any lawyer. As the post introducing it notes, hopefully these checklists will shrink in size as the legal profession becomes more comfortable with the cloud and industry standards become more clearly defined.

Tips for Handling Client Funds Trust account problems are one of the top reasons lawyers are disciplined in the U.S. That is the opening sentence of this fine set of tips authored by Mark Bassingthwaighte, who is a risk manager with Attorney’s Liability Protection Society, Inc. (ALPS). There are some simple and clear tips included here and every lawyer who has a client trust should read this article, share it with other lawyers in the firm and set it aside to read it again this time next year.

Accepting Credit Cards on the Go The idea of swiping a credit card with your smart phone or tablet to accept a retainer fee or clients paying their bills online at night while you are sleeping is quite attractive to lawyers. But accepting credit cards can be a challenge for lawyers, especially if they want to accept mobile payments. This article will really help you get up to speed on how the process works. I admit to a bit of positive bias as the author is CEO of the company that provides our member credit card benefit here in Oklahoma. This has been a very popular member benefit.

An Attorney’s Guide to Engagement Agreements  Allison Shields recently wrote a series of posts about the essential elements of a retainer agreement or engagement letter. This is a compilation of all of the posts. She has very clear, brief and easy-to-read points.

Happy Reading!

Opening a New Law Practice - New resources

The articles from "Opening a Law Practice" issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal, published in October 2012 are now all available online. Enjoy and share this post with others, especially a lawyer or law student who is contemplating setting up a law practice.   
• Starting Solo - From Oath to My Own Office
        - by Byron J. Will
• Equipping the Law Office 2012 - by Jim Calloway
• Going With the Flow -- The Truth About Cash Flow
        Management - by Douglas Gierhart
• Great Resources Abound but Time Does Not
        - by Jim Calloway
• Insurance for Lawyers and Law Offices -- From the
        Basics to "I Didn't Know You Could Insure That!" -
        by Jennifer Beale
• Professional Liability Insurance - The Rest of the
        Story - by Alison A. Cave
• Success in Solo and Small Firm Settings
        - by Jennifer Kirkpatrick
• Ten Things to Know When Starting a Small-Town
        Practice - by Stephen D. Beam and Jon K. Parsley
• The Agony and the Ecstasy - Tips on Starting Your
        Own Law Practice - by Tracey Garrison
• The Non-Tech Side of Starting Your Own Practice
        - by Michelle Harrington
• What's Your Exit Strategy - by D. Scott
        Pappas
• Trust Accounting 101 - by OBA Ethics Counsel Travis Pickens

 

Law Firm Profitability Today

As I told a group of law students last week, the practice of law is an honored profession and an essential part of one of the three branches of government. But, at the same time, a law firm is a business. It has income and expenses. One goal is to make a profit for the owners (or partners.)

Given the tough economic times, the July/August 2012 issue of Law Practice Magazine, the "Law Firm Profitability Issue," should be required reading for about every lawyer in private practice. The cover story is The New Normal: Restoring Profitability by Arthur G. Greene, who has spent much of his professional career consulting with law firms.

Arthur G. Greene is our guest on our new Digital Edge podcast "The New Normal." He discusses how to address today's economy by using existing resources, the importance of determining your firm's revenue capacity and the rise of alternative billing. Arthur is a soft-spoken individual with an immense store of knowledge. I will admit to being a bit skeptical when he discussed revenue capacity as it is somewhat of measure of perfection that cannot be reached. But he did convince me and he may prove convincing to you. We hope you enjoy the podcast.

Sometimes a theme issue of a magazine may reflect a cover story and another feature. The Law Practice Profitability issue has five articles directly relating to profitability, two on alternative billing and others that indirectly relate to profitability. These include Increase Profit by Decreasing Costs by K. William Gibson, Accelerating Receivables for Greater Profitability by Kevin C. Harris and Allison Renaud, 15 Proven Profitability Techniques by Joel A. Rose and Profiting When the World Is Flat by Karen MacKay and Stephen Mabey.

I also note two articles of special personal interest to me: A Case for Alternative Billing is by Mark A. Robertson, a fellow Oklahoma lawyer and my co-author on the book, Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour, 3 ed. and Choose the Right Case Management Software by Erik Mazzone, the director of Center for Practice Management at the North Carolina Bar. It is going to be an ongoing challenge to be more efficient in the upcoming years and I think getting case management software or signing up for a cloud-based alternative is critical.

Rethinking the roles of your law firm’s support staff (and more resources for the lawyer-employer)

Earlier this year, I wrote a column for Lawyer's USA about Rethinking the roles of your law firm’s support staff. In many small or medium-sized law firms, the staff is divided between secretaries and legal assistants, with perhaps a receptionist or billing clerk. With the many complex tasks that are required in a law office today, having employees who gain deeper expertise in certain tasks may be a great benefit to the law firm. So read this article and see if your law firm should be rethinking some job descriptions and duties.

Lawyers USA also has a free resource available if you would like to read more about law firm staffing. As noted on the website:

"Brought to you by the editors of Lawyers USA, this FREE e-report contains the latest techniques for finding, motivating, keeping and developing your most valuable resource.  We’ve consulted some of the most prominent experts in the field of law firm management including Nancy Byerly Jones, Jim Calloway and Ed Poll to bring you a comprehensive report on this hot topic." Signing up to receive that will also register you for Lawyers USA’s free daily email alert. (You can unsubscribe at any time.)

Visit http://lawyersusaonline.com/free-white-paper-support-staff/ for this fine white paper about getting the best from your staff.

We're All Legal Technologists Now

That headline must strike fear in the hearts of some lawyers, who already feel that they have to follow too many recent developments in the law. But this week the American Bar Association House of Delegates passed several Amendments to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct relating to lawyer's knowledge about technology. Yes, I remember when I was one of a small group of "teckies" scaring lawyers about the impact of metadata. Now the Model Rules have been amended to include references to metadata. A comment to Rule 1.1 regarding Competence added "including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology" to the requirements of basic lawyer competency. Here's a nice story from Sean Doherty of Law Technology News outlining the changes related to technology. The Model Rule proposed changes now go to the states to see if they will be adopted in the various jurisdictions.

Podcasting the Future of Law Practice

Since I already made one blog post on the future of law practice this week, I decided I should mention that our most recent Digital Edge podcast is our 56th Edition, which was also about The Future of Law Practice. My podcast teammate, Sharon Nelson, interviewed me for a change of pace and added some of her comments on this important topic. Give the podcast a listen if you have time.

We have done a previous Digital Edge podcast about the future of law practice- our 41st Edition posted in March, 2011. Neither Sharon or I reviewed the earlier podcast before recording this one. So if you want to listen to both and see how our thinking had changed in 14 months, feel free to do so. And before some of you even start on that e-mail, the answer is "no," we don't plan to make that topic an annual event. But smart lawyers pay attention to trends--and of course, they also always listen to the Digital Edge podcast!

56th Edition: The Future of Law Practice

The Future Is Hazy -- Thoughts From Some Deep Thinkers

Today's post from those helpful folks at Attorney at Work begins as follows:

"This summer, the hottest ticket at state bar association annual meetings seems to be sessions focused on the future of the business of practicing law. And with just cause. There’s a lot going on out there to make us nervous."

I've certainly been a part of that trend. As readers of this blog know, I did a plenary session on the Future of Law Practice for ABA TECHSHOW in March and gave much the same talk to attendees at the OBA Solo & Small Firm Conference in June. I've also been invited to give the same address at several other state bars. At about the same time of our Solo & Small Firm Conference, Attorney at Work’s Merrilyn Astin Tarlton was giving a keynote address on the topic for the State Bar of Texas. In advance of that, she asked several "top practice management experts" for advice on what actions lawyers should be taking now to prepare for the future. (I put that phrase in quotes since she included me in the group.)

She has now shared those responses with all of us in today's post The Future is Hazy - Now What? This is a quite excellent collection of ideas, comments and observations. Some of these ideas might even be slightly contradictory. (And there's one that I would think was stolen from my TECHSHOW speech, except I think Matt left Chicago before my talk.) As that great philosopher Yogi Berra said: “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

But when you think about it, is there really anything more important for you to do sometime this week than spend a few moments reading and thinking about your future?