Project Management for Lawyers

There are many ways to fail and sometimes few ways (or one) to succeed. Many lawyers tend to view the whole concept of legal project management with some suspicion and wariness. They view themselves as creative problem solvers and do not want their thought processes to be limited to following a flow chart. Besides, just how professional could following a flow chart be?

Every now I then I want to say PLEASE read this article everyone. Today is such a case. The anonymous curmudgeon Otto Sorts has posted an article on the AttorneyAtWork site titled Life Is Complex and Uncertain which contains an easy six point approach to project management. (Go ahead and read it now. I'll wait for you.) Great work, Otto. I have no idea why your editors called you "Strange" in the bio section.

But at the risk of incurring some curmudgeonly disapproval, let me suggest that this is only the first part of the roadmap for law firm success. I have mentioned before how I think lawyers would benefit from reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Otto Sorts has outlined project management for a particular project. Atul Gawande encourages us to then take that work product and, at firm expense, build a template (aka checklist) to institutionalize this thinking process to benefit the firm and the next client for the next similar project. We should let the project plan/template/checklist evolve just the way our standard form documents are modified when the law changes or unexpected difficulties are encountered.

Cost-Effective Law Practice Management

Last week I was a guest on the Lawyer2Lawyer podcast.  Here's their description: "As law firms slowly climb out of this recession, have their legal practice management skills changed? Lawyer2Lawyer co-host and attorney J. Craig Williams welcomes Rudy Bazelmans, Regional Director of Expense Reduction Analysts and Jim Calloway, Director of the Oklahoma Bar Association's Management Assistance Program, to explain the current state of the legal industry, new law practice management skills, what attorneys have done to cut costs and how to keep costs down in the future."

It is certainly an interesting and timely topic. So take a few minutes to use this link to listen to a discussion of Cost-Effective Law Practice Management.

ABA TECHSHOW is about your Future

The Early Bird Deadline for registering for ABA TECHSHOW 2012 has been extended until February 24, 2012. This is a really good year to attend ABA TECHSHOW.

As ABA TECHSHOW Reid Trautz notes in his TECHSHOW blog post, Why ABA TECHSHOW is About Your Future, there are many changes impacting the legal industry. Some of these changes are the result of the adoption of new technology, while technology is the key to responding to others. An ABA Journal article this week quoted law professor Brian Tamanaha as writing that law schools produce 45,000 new graduates each year, while only 25,000 job openings are projected each year through 2018. Surely we all have to recognize that trend impacts many practicing lawyers, not just the newly minted lawyers who cannot find a job.

Read Mr. Trautz's post. This is a critical time for us all. I'm excited about ABA TECHSHOW and my Saturday morning presentation, The Future of Law Practice: Dark Clouds or Silver Linings. I hope to see you at ABA TECHSHOW.

Moving to a Virtual Practice Model – Do You Have the Right Stuff?

The September/October issue of the ABA Law Practice Magazine covers virtual law practices. I was the guest editor for this issue of the magazine and wrote the story Moving to a Virtual Practice Model – Do You Have the Right Stuff? I won't recapitulate the entire article here, other than to say my conclusion is "it depends." But I have no doubt this business model will prove very attractive to some.

I appreciate all of those who contributed to this issue of the magazine. There is a lot of great content here from a lot of experts. The features include:

The Next Five Years – Predictions for the Future of eLawyering By Richard S. Granat and Marc Lauritsen

Watch Where You Set Your Virtual Foot – Advice on Dealing with Varying State Rules By Daniel J. Siegel

The Untethered Law Office – Tools and Tips for Getting It Done By Jay S. Fleischman

Using Online Service Providers – Where the Duty of Confidentiality Reigns By Kathryn A. Thompson (research counsel for ETHICSearch, a service of the American Bar Association Center for Professional Responsibility.)

Leading the Virtual Firm By Karen Mackay

Popular Cloud Computing Services for Lawyers: Practice Management Online By Stephanie L. Kimbro and Tom Mighell  (Stephanie's blog VirtualLawPractice.org is a great resources on this topic.)

And there is a related article: Marketing Alternative Fee Arrangements By Mark A. Robertson

There are other greeat columns and articles in this magazine. I hope it can serve as a resource for some of you interested in learning more about virtual law practices.

Great Free Trust Accounting and Legal Ethics Information from Minnesota

Setting up a lawyer's trust accounting procedures in Quickbooks is certainly doable. But if you are not an accounting whiz, you might be worried you missed something. There are other tools like GnuCash (free) or Microsoft Office Accounting 2006 or 2007. Earler this year, the Minnesota Bar Association announced the release of its Trust Accounting Guides that have previously only been available to Minnesota Bar lawyers. In the spirit of public service, all lawyers can now benefit from their step-by-step instructions contained in:

• Keeping Client Trust Accounts with GnuCash 2.2.4;
• Keeping Records for Client Trust Accounts Using Microsoft Office Accounting 2006 or 2007;
• Using QuickBooks 6.0 for Lawyers’ Trust Accounting;
• Trust Accounting with QuickBooks 2005 Professional;
• Keeping Clients’ Trust Accounts with QuickBooks 2010 Professional

This blog post from the MSBA Practice Blog contains all of the details and a link to the download site. You do have to furnish an e-mail address so you can be notified of updates or changes. This is truly a great public service. So thanks to the MSBA!!

But that is not all! As noted in the blog post linked above, they are also giving away Minnesota Legal Ethics, a 400 page ebook treatise by William J. Wernz. You read correctly. They are giving it away for free for you to download. So let's all show the Minnesota State Bar Association our thanks by taking them up on their offer to download these great free resources.

Sticky Employee Recognition

As a comic noted, sometimes you have the right to remain silent, but not the ability. That happened to me today when I was quickly flipping through a catalog and came across the following product listing. Download Recognition stickies Again, I should probably just let it go, but I can't! They are selling sets of pre-printed sticky notes for the busy manager to use to give positive feedback to employees. You just sign and deliver, according to the ad. Let's face it. What employee doesn't get a boost out of getting a pre-printed sticky note from the boss saying "You Nailed it" or "You Rock"?

What makes these even more of a value is that they come in sets of four in a binder that has inside the cover several  reasons why you might "reward" someone with a sticky. If you are a negative person, it is probably good to have the handy reminders that you might award a sticky for "keeping focused" or "being persistent." But I hope this comes with a warning label to keep it hidden within the desk. If the boss is out, seeing the locked and loaded stickies combined with the reminder list of why a subordinate might deserve such a reward open on the desk of the boss might generate many Facebook postings, if not outright laughter.

There is a point here, which I hope is obvious. if you are so bad about giving your employees feedback that buying pre-printed stickies to give out kudos is tempting to you, that siutation probably merits some more time and consideration. Law offices are busy places and competency is just assumed. But people like to hear when they are doing a good job, even if a pre-printed sticky note doesn't seem like the right tool for most law offices.

But if you want to try passing out a few notes to employees for positive feedback, I do have an idea for you.

Pre-printed isn't always bad.

You can be a hero.......

...... if you pass out cards that have "Gift Card" preprinted on them!

Venture Capitalists Take Aim at Lawyers

“First they came for the book store owners, and I didn’t speak up because I didn’t own a book store and cheaper books sounded good. Then they went after the big music labels and I didn’t speak up because I never liked the Big Music industry anyway. But now they are coming after the legal profession and that is just wrong in so many ways. It is time to fight back.”

The paraphrasing of Martin Niemöller’s famous statement may strike many readers as a poor attempt at humor. But the recent news articles about Google focusing on the legal industry merit the attention of lawyers. Let’s face it. If you are in a contest, you would probably not want it to be against Microsoft or Google.

Forbes magazine carried the news this month that Google Ventures is part of a group pouring $18.5 million into Rocket Lawyer, which is claiming to be the “fastest growing online legal service.” This news was followed up by a Forbes column titled “Google Backing of DIY Legal Forms Will Force Lawyers To Lower Fees.”

Certainly Rocket Lawyer is not the only business seeking to profit from providing preparation of legal documents online. When the economic outlook for the legal profession is certainly not projected to be one of increasing profits, why are venture capitalists apparently so interested in the legal profession? To answer that question, I turned to Richard Granat. Granat is the lawyer behind DirectLaw, a firm that provides lawyers with the tools to set up virtual practices that deliver documents and legal services online. He is also a long-time member and current Co-Chair of the eLawyering Task Force of the ABA Law Practice Management Section.

Calloway: So what is the story behind such VC interest in the legal profession?

Granat: With Google Ventures funding both LawPivot and RocketLawyer™ and Kleiner Bell’s group investing $66,000,000 in LegalZoom combined with other evidence of interest that I have seen in the VC community, I see a “buzz” or “new paradigm” going around this community ( “the VC community”), that it is time to break the back of solos and small law firms by funding disruptive experiments that are designed to bring real change to the delivery of legal services, no matter what impact it has on the livelihoods of solos and small law firms.

Calloway:  I talk to a lot of lawyers who already say they are working longer hours for less money. I thought the VC money chased highly profitable and emerging ventures.

Granat:  The legal profession is just the next target of opportunity, no matter what the social cost. The VC funds don’t really care that what they are investing in may be violating existing unauthorized practice of law (UPL) laws, e.g. LegalZoom. They just see an opportunity to radically change the solo and small law firm legal industry sector at whatever costs, in order to create value for the enterprises they invest in and for themselves. Disruption means sucking the value from an industry sector in favor of the disrupter,  just as Apple sucked value from desk-top computing, and changed the music industry, Amazon permanently sucked value from the book retail industry, and Netflix changed the movie distribution industry.

Calloway: Disruption sounds very scary, as do the examples you cite. But haven’t we seen this before? Every lawyer I know has several stories of clients who had to pay thousands of dollars to fix the mess created when they tried to do something themselves or had some non-lawyer try to do it. These so-called simple matters are often not as simple as they may seem.

Granat:  I agree in part. It depends on the problem. Some consumers will settle for what I call a “good enough” result. So for example, if consumers buy a set of no-fault divorce forms and file their own divorce, and it is awarded, they get a result they can live with, because it is better than paying thousands of dollars in legal fees, which is often the other alternative.

On the other hand, the average consumer does know what they don’t know.  In this instance the uninformed party may not know what rights they are giving up to child support, spousal maintenance or property division. To cite another example, a will may look simple, but if one issue is dealt with incorrectly, the entire document might be invalid, or a subject to attack.

LegalZoom says that it has sold more than 1,000,000 wills, and Robert Shaprio, of O.J. fame, claims the ”Law is on Your Side”, whatever that means. But the reality is no one knows whether the content of those wills fits the circumstances of the testator and reflects the testator’s true intent. When the consumer learns that a mistake has been made, it is often too late.

Calloway: You mentioned UPL laws. Lawyers believe that UPL laws serve an important role in protecting the public when some of the most important issues of their lives are in play. When I was in private practice, there were many times I was consulted when someone was about to sign a terrible document, like a completely unfair divorce settlement agreement.  Are lawyers the only ones who see the danger to the public here?

Granat:  This is a complicated area. I don’t think that the general public would want a regulatory régime where anyone could represent another person in a court, without being licensed. The courts would not permit it any way.

On the other hand, drafting and preparing documents seems to be another matter. I think that one of the consequences of the release of legal information and legal forms from the law books, and onto to the Internet, is that a large majority of the American public now think they can do things on their own without the assistance of a lawyer.

I don’t think the legal profession has done a good job of marketing its true value and its social contribution in this area. While every state has a statute on its books that prohibits a non-lawyer from preparing a legal document, LegalZoom continues to do so with impunity. The top leadership of the American Bar Association, dominated as it is by larger law firms, has done nothing to promote the contribution and role that solos and small law firms play in our larger society. So if the top leadership of the organized bar doesn’t take a position on the matter, it makes it look like solos and small law firms – the target of these new disruptive ventures – are just out to protect their incomes, rather than protecting the public from real harm.

Calloway: I can sense already a reaction from some lawyers that we only are talking about high-volume, lower cost work that is not really that profitable in the first place. Some lawyers avoid this type of work and other lawyers do it as much for a public service and building good will as anything. The legal profession is currently very competitive. Lawyers know how to compete. So won't a little competition just make us better?

Granat:  I think that the economics of solo and small practice is undergoing a major transformation. Lawyers will still be able to demand high fees for complex, value-added work. For tasks where there is a large information component which can be manipulated by software, such as web-enabled document automation systems, lawyers will feel the effects of disintermediation, just as other industries have that have been transformed by the Internet.

Much higher volume work is the bread and butter of solo and small firm practice. If these services are pulled away from the law firm, and delivered by non-lawyer entities, it will completely destabilize the economic model upon which solos and small law firm practice is built. I think that the economics of small firm practice is beginning to change in a fundamental ways. $150-$250 an hour billing rates are not a guaranteed “right”. They are, or were, a response to market dynamics. The market for legal services is changing.

Calloway: Admittedly we both have personal objectives here. I’ve been advocating for some time that lawyers should have better document assembly solutions in place and your business is to help lawyers set up virtual law practices. But I’m sure you have some ideas about how solo and small firm lawyers should respond to this challenge.

Granat:  Lawyers have to learn how to work smarter. Last year, Marc Lauritsen Co-Chair of our eLawyering Task Force wrote a brilliant book, The Lawyer's Guide to Working Smarter with Knowledge Tools, on how lawyers can work smarter but it has not been widely read. It should be required reading by every solo and small firm practitioner. Further, to compete in today’s connected world, lawyers need to pick up the skills to market their services online and to deliver legal services online. If you are not online, you are nowhere.

Calloway: There are other resources readers can review. Jordan Furlong recently did a blog post on this topic called Here come the disruptors and you can get a flavor of Marc Lauritsen's book mentioned above by reading this article he wrote for Law Practice magazine.

Like the law enforcement slogan, lawyers protect and serve their clients. I have no doubt that centuries-old tradition will continue, even if some methods of delivery of legal services may change. The ramifications of the trends discussed above are yet to be seen.

Using Checklists in your Law Practice

Using Checklists in your Law Practice is the title of my Lawyers USA column that was just posted to the Web. I'm sure everyone reading this uses checklists in many different ways. But I hope my column on this very important topic will give you some new ideas. One idea that I recommend to every single lawyer is to get a copy of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande and read it! The book is not very expensive and may be the book that shows you the way to a more successful practice. You can also "check out" his online checklist for checklists to help evaluate your personal checklists.



Your Future as a Lawyer

Thinking about your future can bring forth many emotions, especially if the future looks challenging and uncertain. That's why it may be easy for time-challenged lawyers to avoid the exercise. If you are going to retire in the next few years, skip this blog post. Otherwise, invest thirty minutes this week reading the articles I have linked here. If you need inspiration to think about this, just start with the following feature story from the July 2011 ABA Journal Law Job Stagnation May Have Started Before the Recession—And It May Be a Sign of Lasting Change. Quite a few observers of the legal industry have drawn some of the same conclusions. Just to make certain you click on the link to the story, here's the "money quote" from the article:

• "For most lawyers, survival will depend upon their ability to harness technology to deliver greater value to clients at a cost that declines—yes, declines—over time. The biggest challenge for law firms will be transitioning away from internal firm metrics that reward billable hours and discourage or prohibit the crucial trial-and-error experimentation needed to create, refine and market more innovative work processes that do more with less." Id.

So go read the article to see how the authors reached that conclusion.

But the future brings promise as well as challenges. Maybe none of us will see that future where one can make a living as a "Space Lawyer," but it is not hard to see new and emerging areas of law practice.

But a good opportunity to chart your future appears this month in another ABA publication, the "Careers" issue of Law Practice magazine (July/August 2011.) The Time to Take a Leap feature begins with an important story by a good friend of mine. Lawyers Join the Free Agent Nation by Stephen P. Gallagher charts how career paths have changed for lawyers just as the idea of life-long employment with a single company has changed for the majority of the American work force. The is followed by 10 Steps to Prepare Yourself for a Graceful Launch by John H. Snyder. Although this is written for a hypothetical associate about to leave the big firm, it is good reading for anyone taking stock of your career. The feature then focuses on several lawyers and their successful career changes.

But, wait, you might say, "I really am my law practice at  this point and there's really nowhere to leap." (Joke in poor taste omitted.)  It is certainly true that for many lawyers, from solo/small firm lawyers to partners in larger law frims that they could change their address or their partners, but the clients that they serve are their law practice. Absent taking a salaried job and shuttering a private practice, they may feel  certain that they are not looking at career change.

As suggested by the ABA Journal article on stagnation, you may have the choice of reinventing your practice or watching while others reinvent it for you. So continue your tour of the Careers edition of Law Practice magazine by reading Make the Right Move: Career Assessment Tools by Wendy L. Werner for some ideas on learning about yourself, Optimizing Your Online Shingle: On-Page and Off-Page Best Practices by Bob Ambrogi and Steve Matthews and enjoy the fun of Sharon Nelson and John Simek discussing using an iPad in your law practice. In the Ask Bill column, Bill Gibson talks with me and Tom Mighell about social media for lawyers.

Whether you are a new lawyer or law student entering the job market, who should read the entire Careers edition of Law Practice magazine or you want to pick and choose, there's a lot in Law Practice magazine, this month and every month and I'd say that even if I wasn't on the magazine's editorial board.

Jay Shepherd's Rules for a Successful Law Practice

After 13 years of running his law practice, Jay Shepherd is taking his career in another direction.

You will find the rules for success in his blog post Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Reflections on Thirteen Years to be very valuable. He has 13 rules for his thirteen years. The first 12 rules are great and the last one humorous. I am presumptuous enough to clarify his rule #8 Pay yourself first. I know for certain he doesn't mean pay yourself before you pay your staff. As an employer, paying your staff on time is a business and ethical duty. They have to be paid on payday. With automatic debits, even a day late could be a disaster. But I do agree with the point Jay was making. A law practice can appear very viable when it is not if you do not include paying the lawyer. I assume any business can look great if you do not pay the workers.

But Jay has great rules that reflect the reality of today's environment. That reality is very different today than when many of us first started practicing law. I wish every lawyer starting a law practice could read them. In fact, every lawyer in private practice should.