Site of the Week: The Last Word Blog is Launched

Today I have a pleasant assignment. I get to write about one of my favorite people. That is because Laura Calloway has launched her new blog, The Last Word. Laura Calloway is the Director of the Practice Management Assistance Program for the Alabama State Bar. She is an intelligent and capable lawyer and I have no doubt Alabama bar members love her and her program. I'm well aware that Laura has served in her role with the Alabama Bar for eleven years as we both recall learning that the Oklahoma Bar and the Alabama Bar were starting Practice Management Advisor programs. Both were launched within a month of each other and both hired directors named Calloway. She never lets me forget that she has senority, however.

She has been named to chair ABA TECHSHOW 2009. So I am really looking forward to ABA TECHSHOW, as I do every spring. I can't begin to list all of Laura's accomplishments. She served as co-editor for the finance articles for Law Practice Magazine. She speaks and writes frequently. I'm sure we will all learn a lot from The Last Word.

Usually I wouldn't feature a new blog as a Website of the Week, but this one is guaranteed to have lots of useful content. (Of course, posting may be a bit light leading up to ABA TECHSHOW 2009 next spring, but we understand that.) So check out The Last Word. In fact, one of her posts is something I was going to write about last week, but I got a little too angry. So look for my take on an important June deadline later this week.

Another Firm Improperly Redacts Important Documents

Today we have another report of a law firm making a technology blunder that appears to arguably violate a court order on what should be sealed and could adversely impact the client's case. According to an article originally published in the Connecticut Law Tribute, pleadings from a class action lawsuit against GE that the court ordered sealed were improperly redacted before being filed. Apparently anyone can access the pleadings through PACER, copy the redacted material and reveal the "redacted" text by pasting into a Word document. This is a class action sex discrimination suit seeking a potential $500 million recovery. Hopefully by now, the offending documents have been removed and others substituted.

Whether it is improper redaction of documents or metadata disclosure issues, the simple fact is that lawyers have to understand the technology tools that they and their staff are using. Judges are learning new technology lessons due to e-filing and electronic discovery and they will be less inclined to forgive lawyers who make these kinds of errors in the future. Don't try to do redaction without the proper tools, which means using Adobe Acrobat Professional 8 (not a prior version) if you are using Adobe to do it or one of the other redaction tools like the plug-in mentioned in the article.

Several months ago a lawyer called me expecting to be criticized, I think. They were working late on a deadline and became concerned about a few redactions they had to make. They ended up printing the documents, marking through the text with a black magic marker and then scanning/OCR'ing the marked document to create a new PDF. "I guess you think we were pretty dumb, huh?" He said. My response was that I thought they had all slept well that night, knowing that they had erred on the side of caution and were sure they hadn't disclosed any information by accident.

For 2008, I Hereby Resolve …

It's now the second week of February. How are you doing on all of those New Year's resolutions? Are you still keeping them all or is the better question whether there any still unbroken?

For those of you who subscribe to the RSS newsfeed, you might have thought this post was somehow delayed. But, actually I intended to wait a bit to bring my January Oklahoma Bar Journal piece, For 2008, I Hereby Resolve …, to your attention. I figured you might have heard too much about resolutions in January. This column is not about personal resolutions or improvement, but rather about goal setting for law firms. It's very short so that you can spend your time setting goals rather than reading about setting goals.

2007 in Law Office Management and Technology

At the end of each year I do a presentation called Recent Developments in Law Office Management and Technology as a part of an overall recent developments seminar in December. This year I decided use part of the material from that presentation for my December Bar Journal column, which my editors titled Year’s Best in Law Office Management and Technology. This is a very short column highlighting some of the big developments of 2007, at least from the perspective of one Oklahoma lawyer.

Still More on Closing Files, Destroying Files and Making Money

I have been thinking destructive thoughts recently. Last month (August 4th, 2007) in the Oklahoma Bar Journal I wrote an article titled "Closing Files, Destroying Files and Making Money." I was proud of this article and the focus on the interplay between file closing and file destruction policies. But some more related materials crossed my desk after my deadline and, when it was published, someone noted that I really didn't discuss much about the mechanics of destroying old client files. And, I had not touched destruction of digital client materials at all.

So this month (September 1, 2007), I followed it up with Closing Files, Destroying Files and Making Money  (Part 2) How to Shred Almost Anything. This article turned out to be fairly long and it covered many more topics than just the physical act of shredding files. I cited some utilities to aid in digital file destrcution as well. I hope this pair of articles is useful to a broad range of lawyers in all sizes of firms as a fairly good treatment of the topic. Noted author and lecturer Jay Foonberg also gave me permission to reprint his "Implied Consent to Destruction Letter" as a useful form.

Site of the Week: Legal Management Archives from ALA

This may be one of my most valuable Website of the Week posts, so don't stop reading early.

I have been a member of the Association of Legal Administrators for ten years now. We have a great local chapter in Oklahoma City. It is too bad I often have conflicts and have to miss their monthly meetings. If your law firm administrator does not belong to this national organization, your firm is missing out on lots of resources, training and (in the cities for certain) a peer support group. Check out ALA's Website for more information.

But that's not my Website of the Week. I'm highlighting a subpart of that site. Legal Management magazine is the ALA's publication and one of its member benefits. It is a very nice publication. My Website of the Week is the ALA's Legal Management archives. There you can download many articles from the prior issues of Legal Management. You will find a wealth of information there on all aspects of managing law firms. ALA would have been well within its rights to lock up these archives as a member's only benefit. But instead they are available to all of you online.

And, no, I'm not just touting Legal Management this month because I was the co-author of the cover story on mobile technology security (July/August 2007.) But here's a link to the current issue of Legal Management.

From Business Boot Camp to The New Lawyer Experience

The American Bar Association publication Your ABA recently highlighted a program that had me as one of the panelists at ABA Annual Meeting. Read this nice article about our Business Boot Camp for Lawyers. We had a nice audience and my co-panelists were great.

In Oklahoma, it is time for lawyers who are either in the process of opening or thinking about opening a private law practice to register for The New Lawyer Experience. This free program will be held September 28, 2007 at the Tulsa County Bar Center and October 2, 2007 at the Oklahoma Bar Center. Oklahoma lawyers can see the schedule and get more details online here. We'll cover a lot of the basics that you may not have learned in law school, but we'll also have some cutting edges concepts to discuss.

While we schedule this program to take place a few days after the admittance ceremony for new lawyers, we always have a good number of experienced lawyers who are either changing careers or just updating/refreshing their information. I hope to see many of you who follow this blog at the program. However, you don't have to be an Oklahoma lawyer to benefit from this program in one way. Our Starting a Law Practice Web Directory has lots of information for you to read and review.

Closing Files, Destroying Files and Making Money

I get a fair number of calls from Oklahoma Bar Association members about destruction of old closed client files. Can they destroy these files? If so, when? What are the requirements and pitfalls? So, for the August 4th, 2007, Oklahoma Bar Journal I wrote "Closing Files, Destroying Files and Making Money." One important point is that if you ever hope to properly destroy client files, you should probably examine your current method of closing files. I hope you enjoy the article.

I'm a solo lawyer. Why would I need a business plan or budget?

• You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." ─ Yogi Berra

Lawyers opening up new law practices may hear from veteran lawyers that there is no need to spend time drafting a written business plan or budget for the first year. They may say that they never did that and became quite successful. I won't disagree with that. Years ago few law firms prepared written business plans and almost no solo lawyers did. But that was then and this is now. Many business matters and many legal matters were much more simple in the "good old days."

Today no new business more complex than a kid's summer lemonade stand should open without a written business plan and even the kid's lemonade stand needs a budget. The July 2007 issue of Law Practice Today has a very short article titled "A Business Plan and Budget: The foundation of a successful and profitable practice" by Dave Bilinsky and Dan Pinnington. It includes links to some free resources from practicePRO to help you draft these documents. The American Bar Association also has for sale The Lawyer's Guide to Creating a Business Plan: A Step-by-Step Software Package, 2006 Edition.

As Yogi Berra might have said, an unwritten business plan isn't worth the paper it is written on.

2007 Summer Reading Ideas from Texas Lawyer

Michael P. Maslanka does a "Work Matters" summer reading list each summer for the Texas Lawyer. His selections are aimed for corporate general counsel. But, while his first suggestion is definitely corporate self-improvement, the others range from "Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts," by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson to a book of poetry. Two titles by Seth Godin sounded particularly interesting. Check out his books.

A hat tip to the INHOUSE Blog for pointing me to the artlcle.

Thoughtful Legal Management Blog Debuts

David J. Bilinsky has entered the blogosphere  with his new weblog, Thoughtful Legal Management. This brings up several questions. The most obvious is whether the term "thoughtful legal management" is an oxymoron. The second is why a very well respected gentleman who is already busy as a Practice Management Advisor and staff lawyer for the Law Society of British Columbia and the Editor-in-Chief of Law Practice Magazine would want to further complicate his life by starting a new blog? David, I should know the answer to that one because I hear (ask myself) similar questions with each new project. But I don't.

David is a towering intellect. Davis is a friend. He's also a perfectionist. So I want to warn him publicly that every blog post doesn't have to be perfect. Just toss them up there because we know you have a lot to share. I've had several really nice blog posts that died in the draft mode waiting to be perfected. Then a month or so later I review the draft and decide it just isn't that timely anymore or I'm just tired of thinking about it.   Besides if you aren't aiming for perfect, mistakes are then just a part of the business plan. So that's my blogger mentoring moment.

David is also a former ABA TECHSHOW chair. I'll let you review his other list of accomplishments here. There will be some great information about law firm management on his blog, so stay tuned. And, congratulations, Dave. Starting a blog is half the battle won already.

A Post About the New Postal Rate Increase that Every Small Firm Lawyer Should Read

If you have a law office administrator, they are probably all over the upcoming postal rate increases. But if you are a small firm lawyer without a staff person who keeps track of such things, you simply have to read Are You Ready for the New Postal Regulations and a Whopping Increase in Costs? by Ellen Freedman. We've all dealt with postal increases before, but this one is different. The previous ones primarily only changed the rates, but this one deals with shapes and thicknesses. If you don't pay attention, you could see your mailing costs go way up! You may need to trade in your #10 envelopes for 6" X 9" envelopes. But i'll let Ellen explain why.

Issues about "The Graying Bar"

I now find myself with a moral obligation to direct your attention to one of my least favorite law blogs in the entire blogosphere. The blog post I reference is the Graying Bar: let's not forget the ethics. This blog post is a quite comprehensive academic treatment of issues relating to some senior lawyers and includes numerous links and citations to material about the aging process and our profession. I know some bar association staff follow this blog and I wouldn't want any of you to miss out on the resources here. Even the normally distracting interspersed hiakus add flavor and texture to this topic. It won't be enough for me to add this blog back to my newsreader. I have found it to be biased and unfair to bar associations and small firm lawyers in particular. But I do want to note good work when I find it, especially when there are limited resources on a topic.

Must Read Material for Solos II: Best of Solo and Small Firm Conferences

Near the end of January two great magazines focusing on solo and small firm law practice showed up on my desk. Both magazines had several personal connections to me (and several friends and colleagues) along with lots of material I wanted to highlight for you. In my prior post I noted that the American Bar Association's differing intramural Web posting policies made it difficult to cover on my blog what was so simple when it happened.

So the subject of the first post, Law Practice magazine, is freely available on the web, but may go behind the password shield in a few weeks. Today's subject is GPSolo magazine and the January/February issue of that publication has yet to be posted online. You should be able to find it here soon. And later, like all of the prior issues of GPSolo back to 1995, you should be able to find it here. It is great that the GPSSF Division leaves all this content available online for members and non-member lawyers alike.

So what got me so excited about this GPSolo issue? It focused on the Best of the Solo and Small Firm Conferences, a topic near and dear to my heart. So forgive the lack of links in this post, but with ABA TECHSHOW next week, it is do this now or probably not at all. In this GPSolo Editor-in-chief jennifer rose noted that my colleague with the Missouri Bar, Linda M. Oligschlaeger, is known as the mother of the solo and small firm conference movement. I know when I started our Oklahoma SSF conference calling Linda was the first thing on my list. The Missouri SSF conference still has the largest attendance.

These are really great events and great opportunities to meet other lawyers in similar practice settings. Most conferences mix substantive presentations with practice management and technology programs suited to the small firm market. Some smaller firm lawyers have often felt underserved by some bar associations. These conferences demonstrate a commitment to these lawyers.

For this issue of GPSolo magazine, the editors reviewed materials from numerous SSF conferences for reprinting. The titles should spark your interest. They include Foonberg's Favorite 70 Rules of Good Client Relations, Keeping 'Em Happy: Secrets of Client Satisfaction, Representing Non-English Speaking Clients, Sample Engagement Letters and Fee Agreements, two articles on Setting Up a Home Office, The Lawyer as Employer and "Pay Less in Taxes, Sleep Better at Night and Enjoy Life More." So does that sound like a line-up for a great Solo and Small Firm Conference or what? Both the Missouri and Oklahoma conferences were well represented in the articles selected.

Hopefully this great content will be posted online here soon. The good news is that it will be online thereafter without being hidden behind a password.

Several of these conferences are scheduled this summer, including a brand new one in Nebraska, where they've invited me to speak. If you are a solo or small firm lawyer, consider attending your local SSF conference or, if you don't have one, maybe you should do a scouting trip to a nearby conference on behalf of your bar association.

Must Read Material for Solos: Law Practice - SOLOS, Rising to the Challenge

I'd love to point you to three great collections of materials for Solo and Small Firm lawyers, all from the American Bar Association. (Well, two graded great and one "needs improvement.") But, due to inconsistent ABA policies, the explanation of what is available, when and to whom, is a bit complex. So I'll cover these three potential gold mines in my next three blog posts.

The current good news should be first. The first issue of Law Practice magazine under the able leadership of new editor-in-chief David J. Bilinsky came out several weeks back and much of its contents is now available on the ABA web page. This great issue is called SOLOS, Rising to the Challenge and is all about solo lawyers. Here's the link to the table of contents. If you are not an ABA Law Practice Management Section member, you should go there soon and read/save/print what you deem important as the LPM section may soon lock up this content behind a member's only password. (Hopefully there appears to be movement within the LPM Section to reevaluate this policy.)

But what an issue!  A newly launched section is described by Bilinsky as "our new Law Practice Case Study feature, which looks at a lawyer facing a complex real-life decision and asks the experts to provide forward, context-relevant advice." The first one is Wide Open Spaces: Advice for Starting Up a Solo Practice. Here, a fictional lawyer contemplates moving from a large firm to solo practice. Offering advice are practice management advisors Jim Calloway and Reba J. Nance, law firm administrator Lori J. Kannenberg and two well-known small firm lawyers—Stephen J. Harhai and Cory Furman.

Other articles include Going Solo: Rising to the Challenge, How to Set Up a Law Library: Solutions for Solos and Small Firms, A Financial Checklist for the New Solo Firm by David Bilinsky and Laura Calloway and Locking the Doors and the Windows: Security in the Solo World by  Catherine Sanders Reach.

As I said, there's a lot of great content in this issue and I have not mentioned it all. Go. Read. Don't delay, especially if you are not an ABA LPM Section member. (And if you are already an ABA member, why aren't you?)

Oklahoma Bar Journal's Management and Technology Theme Issue Offers Lots of Great Reading

The November issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal was a special Management and Technology-themed issue and I was the guest editor. As events unfolded, I ended up writing a lot of it myself.

A Lawyer's Guide to Mobile Computer Security was co-authored by Ellen Freedman, Reid Trautz and myself. Did you know that a personal computer is lost or stolen every 12 seconds? We cover some important points about protecting sensitive client information in these days when so many lawyers are carrying laptop computers or USB flash drives containing client information. This article will also be published (maybe with some additions) in the Pennsylvania Lawyer and American Immigration Lawyers Association magazine. I regret that we didn't have time to review some interesting security tools that I received. Maybe we will do a follow up or update in the future. But for the present, feel free to pass along this link (or the permalink to this blog post) to laptop-packing lawyers you know.

E-Discovery: The New Federal Rules by Jerry Green and Susan K. Carns covers the all of the changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure relating to electronically stored information (ESI) that go into effective December 1, 2006. Even lawyers who never handle litigation or venture inside a courtroom should be aware of these changes. It is critical information for those who advise businesses.

Maximizing Your E-Potential is by Jacob Williams. I believe this is his first article published in the Bar Journal and I predict you will hear more from him. He notes, "Three of the Internet’s resources offered for free that I adopted were RSS feeds, electronic monitoring (e-monitoring) and electronic alerts (e-alerts). They have now established themselves as the wave of the future. If you do not employ them in your practice, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage."

He outlines how Oklahoma lawyers whose case dockets are online with the OCIS docketing system can set up a system so that they are immediately notified every time a document is filed or a docket entry made. This only costs $20 a year by using WatchThatPage.com. He does note a needed tweak to do for each of these pages so that you don't get a notice every day as the date changes.

My article, Conflict Checking Systems from A to Z, turned out to be much longer and more comprehensive than I originally anticipated. Although I think the time for paper-based conflict check systems has passed us by, outlining implementation of a paper-based system seemed to be the best way to go through all of the requirements before moving on to software applications. So I'll immodestly suggest that every lawyer should read this one, whether they use computers or file cards and ledgers.

Motivating Law Firm Staff is a brief Top Ten List from me for small firm lawyers who have to serve as their own Director of Human Relations. But lawyers who work in larger firms can read it, too.

Websites Worth a Visit was the title of my regular Law Practice Tips column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal. I think that is self-explanatory. Some of you will be familiar with most of these. (By now, my colleagues may have figured out why I was complaining about being so overloaded this fall.)

Addiction and the Law: How Dependency Issues Continue to Affect the Legal Profession is a condensed version of an article By Cliff Collins which was originally published in the August/September 2006 issue of the Oregon State Bar Bulletin. We don't normally do reprints, but this is an important issue.

You can download the entire copy of this Bar Journal in PDF format from this link. That might be a better option if you want to print several of these articles to stick in your briefcase. The above link is for the current Oklahoma Bar Journal issue. When the December Bar Journal is posted, this issue will be archived here, which is not a valid link until then.

Solo and Small Firm Conferences from Milwaukee to Maryland

In my prior post I mentioned the ABA GP/Solo Division. The division sponsored a National Solo and Small Firm Conference last week. Ross Kodner and I co-chaired the event. Ponca City, Oklahoma attorney Brian Hermanson was a speaker. Ross and I spent a lot of time working on this and it was a pleasure. Ross has done a nice blog post about the conference if you want more details. At this time the plan is to do it again next fall in Stowe, Vermont. I have to make special note of ABA staffer Laura Ramirez. Imagine having a huge project dumped in your lap when it was already one of your three or four busiest times of the year. And then imagine having to deal with me and Ross almost every day for weeks! Thanks also to the GP/Solo division leadership for supporting the venture and Alexandria, VA attorney, Deb Matthews for serving not only as a track leader, but generally filling in when we needed help.

But right around the corner is the Maryland Bar's 8th Annual Solo and Small Firm Practice Conference on November 11, 2006.  They have some nationally known speakers like Sharon D. Nelson, John Simek, Carolyn Elefant and the ABA's tech guru, Catherine Sanders Reach of the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. My friend, Pat Yevics of the Maryland State Bar, organizes the conference. Fellow conference organizers, I do see another idea really worth stealing -- a "Sanity" track. I like it. For more information, look over the conference schedule.

Improve Your Skills at Delegating

The October issue of Law Practice Today has a brief article that should appeal to all of you time-challenged lawyers out there. It is called The Art of Delegating by Kathleen Brady. Lawyers are sometimes notoriously poor at delegation. This is a very informative article and I'd encourage everyone to read it, even a true solo with no paid staff.

Subscribing to Law Practice Magazine

I know that many of you receive the magazine Law Practice, which is the official magazine of the ABA Law Practice Management Section. If you do not receive the magazine and would like to receive it, this post will tell you how.

First of all, if you are a member of the American Bar Association, you should simply join the ABA LPM section. The annual cost is $50 and you will receive the magazine as well as other such benefits. But non-ABA member lawyers and non-lawyers can now enjoy the benefits of the Law Practice magazine by subscribing. You will find all of the information that you need to subscribe here. The subscription rate is $64 per year and you can subscribe online, by phone or by U.S. Mail. This is one way you can make sure that a steady stream (eight issues per year) of law practice management information regularly comes into your office at a reasonable price.

National Solo and Small Firm Conference - October 19 and 20th -Milwaukee, Wisconsin

One of my favorite projects with the Oklahoma Bar Association is our annual OBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. It is a great opportunity for these lawyers to enjoy CLE targeted to their needs. There is also a good amount of networking and potential for referrals. Whenever possible, I've tried to help other bar association officials organize similar events and I've been a guest speaker at several of these conferences.

My friend Ross Kodner and I are co-chairing the first-ever National Solo and Small Firm Conference organized by the GP/Solo Division of the ABA. Ross has done a lengthy blog post about the event and so I will just refer you to that for more details. There should be more information posted on the division website soon. I certainly hope to see some of you there and, if you follow this blog, be sure and introduce yourself to me if you do attend.

My presentations include panels on 60 Top Practice Tips, Gadgets & Websites In 60 Minutes; My Billing: Powerful Techniques To Get Paid; Keeping Them Happy: The Secrets Of Client Satisfaction and Bloggers Speak: Why SSF Lawyers Should/Should Shouldn't Blog.

Download and Read InnovAction E-zine

I've been meaning to encourage you to download and read InnovAction, a great new e-publication on law firm innovation and creativity from the College of Law Practice Management. Now it is 4:59 p.m. Friday and I'm ready to head out. Luckily Dennis Kennedy explains so well why you need to download it and provides the link here. I know I've given you a lot of "download and read" homework this week, but it is back to school time!

The New Managing Partner's First 100 Days

Several days ago I received an e-mail from Patrick J. McKenna about the release of his free new e-book, First 100 Days: Transitioning a New Managing Partner. You can read the brief book online in an interesting format from NXTBook at this location (loading will take a minute) or print or download it. Patrick McKenna is a true expert in the law firm management field, having co-authored several books in  the field, including First Among Equals. The book contains about a dozen pages of McKenna's thoughts and another dozen of quotes from established law firm leaders. You may find that the NXTBook format is a little distracting. It should have offered more than the two zoom settings provided to find the right combination of my eyes and my screen resolution. But it is visually interesting and you can always hit "Print."

For re-enforcement and amplification of the lessons contained in the e-book, also read Bruce MacEwen's summary of and commentary on the e-book at his Adam Smith, Esg. blog. I recognize probably few of my readers are managing partners at major law firms, but there's a lot of value for the lawyer with one partner and two staff members as well. You would have to pay quite handsomely if you retained either of these gentlemen for advice, so take advantage of the fact that they are willing to give it away.

The Expanding Role of Law Librarians

Law.com has a great article on the changing role of law librarians within law firms, Law Librarians Look Beyond the Books. The shift from pure legal search to a mix of legal and factual research should not surprise anyone who has been paying attention.

Who (or What) Answers Your Law Office Phone?

I have several good friends and colleagues who do similar work for other state bars and Canadian law societies. We have some great discussions via e-mail. Recently we had a lengthy discussion about who or what answers your phone. For many law firms, economic reality dictates that the firm should no longer pay a full-time employee just to serve as receptionist with occasional typing duties. But often the alternatives can be unattractive. Outsourcing to a live answering service can be expensive and cause concerns about client confidentiality. In addition the quality of service may be uneven or generally poor. (Of course having a minimum-wage, unmotivated employee in-house may be no better.) On the other hand, having a phone call answered by an automated answering system can seem less than professional. Many clients detest voice mail.

A summary of our discussion was prepared by Ellen Freedman and posted on her blog here. This is a long post, but this is an important and often-overlooked issue. Your receptionist, in person or on the phone, is often the first person that gives an impression of the law firm to a new client.

Solo Resources from Solosez

Many people now participate in online communities of interest. Getting several opinions when you have a question about something is good, whether you do it in the courthouse snack bar or electronically. I've mentioned Solosez before as an example of a large online community, primarily of lawyers, that operates via an electronic mailing list.  Well, the list manager for Solosez, the incomparable jennifer rose, each month places a few of the most popular message Solosez threads online for all to use. Recent topics range from Internet faxing to banking for solos and small firms to accepting credit cards. It is more work than you might imagine to strip extraneous material and leave just the good content. The result is really useful. So check it out. Thanks, jen.

End-of-year Tax Tips

I wanted to write an article about end of year tax planning and business tasks that should be completed before year end. Unfortunately, I lack the expertise to write such an article. So I talked Oklahoma City attorney and CPA Ken Klingenberg into helping me out with the subject for my monthly column in the Oklahoma Bar Journal. The result was Ken Klingenberg's Top Ten End-of-Year Tax Tips. There's nothing earth-shattering here, but it contains some valuable reminders and tips, especially for the smaller firm lawyer. As for me, when I received Ken's article, I experienced a little of the feeling Tom Sawyer must have had when he got the boys to whitewash the fence for him. Thanks, Ken.

Site of the Week: Managing Clients’ Funds and Avoiding Ethical Problems

"Managing Clients’ Funds and Avoiding Ethical Problems" by Jayne B. Tyrrell and Stephen M. Casey is our Website of the Week this week. Admittedly this is a little different type of Website. It's really just a hypertext-linked CLE paper on trust accounting. But, considering that a number of lawyers get into trouble with trust accounting each year, it is a good primer for every lawyer opening a practice to read. This is a part of the Massachusetts Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts Program Website and some of the information is specific to Massachusetts. There are simple, but very useful, forms attached to the paper. If you follow the procedures outlined and use those forms, you should always have a properly balanced and documented trust account.

Law Practice Management Blogs Abound

The November issue of Law Practice Today has been posted. It contains the usual assortment of helpful articles including such topics as law firm culture, strategic planning and "Eight Things Keeping Law Firm Management Awake at Night". But the feature I really want you to notice is one on the abundance of law practice management blogs that are online. Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell profile nineteen blogs focusing on law practice management (including this one.) This is really sort of amazing, Consider all of the paid law office consultants, coaches and other fee-for-services vendors to help lawyers improve their practices. Now we have 19 sources of practice management advice online for free. Hopefully the number and quality of blogs noted here will convince visitors to this site that it is about time to get one of those RSS newsreaders installed and set up so you don't miss any of these words of wisdom. But, (as the infomercial goes) wait, there's more! New practice management blogs are popping up all the time, like The Practice, mentioned in my post of earlier today.

(And just because I mention subscribing to the RSS feeds, I wouldn't want anyone to think I don't appreciate their visits to this site. It gives me good feedback on what topics interest the readers.)

Disasters Past, Present and Future

Disasters come in all shapes and sizes. A parent dying and leaving small children is an unmitigated disaster to the family. As far as they are concerned, it is of more significance to them than the Gulf Coast hurricanes. The family disaster is worse if the deceased was the family breadwinner without adequate life insurance, but all of the life insurance one could buy doesn't repair the damage.

After spending time with many lawyers impacted by disaster in Mississippi and Louisiana, I'm still trying to collect my thoughts. Losing your business completely to wind or floodwaters is bad enough, but it is just the first part of the equation. Then you have clients scattered across the country with no way to contact them. Your cash flow dries up. You have to deal with a court system that is not fully functional. If you are really unlucky, you might have to deal with a lawyer from another state who thinks that you should have been able to return to business as usual by this time. The Mississippi casinos employed 17,000 and there were many more industry-related jobs. All these people can no longer pay their lawyers--and many other things.

We know there are more disasters ahead, whether they are small or huge, heart attacks or floods.

There is no time like the present to prepare yourself and your law practice to better survive the worst. Here's an article I wrote several years ago: The LawyerThinks About Disasters. This month's Law Practice Today is a special disaster preparation and recovery issue with lots of great articles by experts. (The link is to the current issue. Later, you'll have to look for October, 2005 articles in the archives.)

IRS Raises Mileage Rate

Due to recent increases in fuel prices, the IRS has raised the standard mileage rate to 48.5 cents per mile. This change was effective September 1, 2005 until December 31, 2005. Here's the IRS press release. I'm certain those couriers and others in your office who get reimbursed would appreciate it if you would pass this along to them soon,

New FTC Regulation on Document Destruction Impacts Law Firms

Effective this week (June 1) a new Federal Trade Commission regulation requires the destruction of sensitive information dervived from consumer credit reports. This regulation specifically applies to attorneys as well as other businesses. Hopefully, most law firm procedures already comply with the new rules due to concerns of client confidentiality. But those with bankruptcy and collection practices (and many others) should review their procedures. If you have not done so already, one tip is to replace all (or most) of the waste paper baskets in the office with inexpensive small shredders available at any office supply store. Care should be taken with discarding old backup media and hard drives as well. For more information on this aspect of Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 (FACTA), see the FTC press release announcing the regulation, the FTC Business alert with details and, if you are really into pain, all 36 pages of the regulation as published in the CFR. Thanks to BeSpacific and ace paralegal Celia C. Elwell for the info.

The Lawyer’s Bank Accounts

The Lawyer's Bank Accounts is the topic of my article in this month's Oklahoma Bar Journal. It is a brief overview and may be particularly valuable to the new lawyer setting up a law practice. There are links to other resources about bank accounts for lawyers, including a recent article by Dan Pinnington on internal controls to fight fraud.

Tom Peters Outlines Ways to Succeed and Make Money

How would you like to have a coaching session from an internationally-known management guru like Tom Peters? Many readers would say, "I'd love to, but can't afford it." Well, Tom Peters has posted part 1 of his "100 Ways to Help You Succeed and Make Money" online for you to read. If these don't start you thinking, have someone check your pulse.

Do firms have to pay paralegals overtime?

According to this story in the Virginia Lawyers Weekly, the Department of Labor has issued an opinion letter on January 7 stating that even a paralegal with a four year degree and a paralegal certificate does not qualify for an exemption to overtime pay requirements. I couldn't easily find the opinion letter on the website. If someone wants to send me the link, I'll update this post.

Oklahoma City attorney Bill Wells has generously allowed me to post his informative paper entitled "The New Overtime Regulations: Information for Attorney Employers and Employment Attorneys" that was presented at our OBA Annual Meeting last November. As with any CLE paper, this is informational and should not be considered as legal advice. It is 25 pages in PDF format.

Law Practice Today-- and Tomorrow

One great free resource for law firm technology and management information is Law Practice Today, the e-zine published by the ABA Law Practice Management Section. It is normally published near the end of each month. I suggest you subscribe to the e-zine while visiting the site. That means you will receive e-mail notification when each new issue is published online.

The December 2004 issue of LPT has many noteworthy features. "Looking to the Future: What Changes Do You See Coming in the Next Twenty Years" features some provocative comments from a panel of experts. For example, Colorado attorney Phil Shuey predicts that "[a]lmost all commodity practice (e.g., uncontested divorces, low damages litigation, basic estate planning, and simple business structure creation) will be provided either by non-lawyer commercial entities and/or by the court system itself. "  Phil's not the first or only one to predict this, but if/when it happens it will be a shock for those lawyers that  handle these types of matters for the bulk of their practices.

Of interest to me as well was former ABA TECHSHOW Chair Mark Tamminga's article on extranets. If you are still not sure what extranets are or why your law firm would be interested in them, this short article is a good read for you. If you want detailed information on law firm extranets, there's a link there to the recently published book on extranets by him and Douglas Simpson.