Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog

Six Attorney Practice Management Tools Added as OBA Member Benefits

Right before our Oklahoma Bar Association Solo & Small Firm Conference kicks off, the OBA announces six new practice management member benefits.

(June 6, 2018) Six new member benefits to help Oklahoma lawyers better manage their practices have been announced by the Oklahoma Bar Association. Members who sign up for new subscriptions will receive discounts to Clio, CosmoLex, MyCase, PracticePanther, Rocket Matter or Zola Suite, all cloud-based practice management services for law firms.

“Supporting Oklahoma lawyers as they incorporate modern technology tools into their law practices is an important goal of the OBA. Better efficiency and security tools benefit both lawyers and their clients,” said OBA President Kimberly Hays of Tulsa. “Different solutions focus on different aspects of law practice, which is why the OBA provides free consulting for Oklahoma lawyers who are shopping for a practice management tool.”

Practice management solutions organize digital copies of all client documents, lawyer’s notes, calendar information, pending tasks and all other client information using easy-to-access dashboards. Lawyers can review documents, record time, assign tasks to others in the firm and do many other functions, all within these applications. These tools also provide online client portals for the secure sharing of information with clients.

“There are many available and affordable tools to assist lawyers. While there is a learning curve, the time savings in day-to-day operations becomes apparent rather quickly,” said OBA Practice Management Advisor Darla Jackson.

As part of the vetting process, each vendor demonstrated their product and provided access to complimentary accounts to allow a hands-on preview experience. Additionally, each product was reviewed by OBA Member Services Committee members.

Jim Calloway, OBA Management Assistance Program Director, said, “These cloud-based services were designed to protect confidential client information and to provide both better security for client data and better remote access than many other methods.”

OBA members can find brief descriptions of the practice management solutions, their features and access codes for discounts by logging in to MyOKBar and accessing Practice Management Software Benefits at the bottom of their Profile page.

The 18,000-member Oklahoma Bar Association, headquartered in Oklahoma City, was created by the Oklahoma Supreme Court to advance the administration of justice and to foster and maintain learning, integrity, competence, public service and high standards of conduct among Oklahoma’s legal community.

A Brief Recap of ABA TECHSHOW 2018

ABA TECHSHOW was held March 8 - 10, 2018. So the column, A Brief Recap of ABA TECHSHOW 2018, by me and OBA PMA Darla Jackson is not exactly "hot news." Such is the result of print publication deadlines sometimes. But only a few of the previous TECHSHOW 2018 reviews mentioned the interesting relationship between TECHSHOW exhibitor Logikcull and the Ramones or provided you with the Electronic Discovery Reference Model chart. And I know this is the only recap which quoted Tom Mighell on "non-records."  So hopefully this recap was worth the wait. While I am tempted to describe this column more, it is probably best if I pause and just let you read our column.

The next ABA TECHSHOW is scheduled for February 27 - March 2, 2019 is Chicago. Mark your calendar now.

Collaboration Tools for Lawyers

It has been Collaboration Week for lawyers. It's not like the ABA or Congress designated it as such, but that still seems to be the case.

The "week" actually started last Friday when Attorney At Work published Tech Tips: Collaborating Well With Others. The post noted:

For this edition of Friday Tech Tips, we asked the practice management technology experts: “What’s your best tech tip for collaborating well with others?” Here’s good advice from Jim Calloway, Andrea Cannavina, Jared Correia, Darla Jackson, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell, Catherine Sanders Reach, Deborah Savadra and John Simek.

There is some good content in that post. And wisdom from two Oklahomans. 😊 What more could you want?

But wait, there is more!

This week our Digital Edge podcast was released. The topic is The Case for Collaboration and our guests were Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. They co-authored The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, Second Edition, which was recently released by the ABA. Since Dennis and Tom also have their own long-running podcast, the Kennedy-Mighell Report, no one will be surprised that our end result was a fun and easy-to-listen to podcast.

Today's collaboration tools provide new opportunities for lawyers--if they take the time to learn about them.

Managing a Law Practice in the Age of Intelligent Machines

Managing a Law Practice in the Age of Intelligent Machines represents my attempt to speak to those lawyers who are perplexed by the number of things they are reading and hearing about law office automation and artificial intelligence replacing lawyers. That can happen and I cite one example where it has happened already. But many, hopefully most, lawyers will be using automation and AI to better serve their clients. I hoped to provide a general framework of when automation makes sense and how the law evolves to make particular legal processes more amenable to automation.

Law firm consultant Jordan Furlong has it right. In this column, I noted his observation that lawyers should learn to fight with, not against, the intelligent machines.

This column was published in the March/April 2018 issue of Law Practice magazine, which is its Marketing issue.

Among the many great articles in this issue are Developing a Marketing Mindset by Wendy L. Werner, Social Media Marketing Has Gone Viral by Dan Pinnington, Moving Beyond the 'Practice of Law' by Jordan Furlong (Yes, him again!), Do Lawyers Need a Digital Detox? by Sharon D. Nelson & John W. Simek and The Showdown: Amazon Echo Versus Google Home by Tom Mighell.

Lawyers have been working with machines for a long time. The IBM Selectric typewriter was a law office favorite because it could save and automatically regurgitate sentences and paragraphs into documents.  That was smart technology at the time.

Wellness and Opening a Law Practice

There's a lot of talk about lawyer wellness— and there should be. The practice of law is a demanding profession. The emotional and psychological toll it takes on lawyers is well documented.  But I saw a Twitter thread today that would seem counterintutive to many wellness advocates because the author says the first thing the lawyer opening a practice needs to do about wellness is to see a CPA. I won't recap the author's entire message in this post, but she has a lot of important observations. You can read the thread by clicking on the graphic below. 

I am a big fan of lawyer wellness. I've noticed lately that the only ones I see preaching it are people who only do law part-time because they have a secondary source of income. From someone who was solo, without any backup, let me say, it is still possible to be healthy in law.

— Amicus Trish (@LeadChangeTrish) April 8, 2018

I've been teaching our free Opening Your Law Practice program in Oklahoma for many years. The next edition is May 1, 2018. Oklahoma lawyers and those awaiting Oklahoma Bar Exam results can see the schedule and get sign up information here. (Sorry, no online version yet. You have to show up in person.) We have breakfast and lunch provided by Oklahoma Attorney's Mutual Insurance Company and so advance registrations are strongly preferred. We will have an audience of new lawyers, but we also typically have quite a few veteran lawyers as well, either wanting a refresher or facing a career change. Once a retiring judge came up after the seminar and told me this was the most valuable seminar he had ever attended. As I beamed and thanked him, he continued, "There's no way I want to do all of that." He found employment with flexible hours instead, so maybe it was a great program for him.

But now I have something new to add to my program. For lawyer wellness, your health care professionals are important, but so is your CPA.

Who says Twitter isn't valuable?

Those who cannot attend our seminar can still take advance of our free OBA MAP Starting a Law Practice Directory of resources. You do not have to be an OBA member.

 

Dennis Kennedy on Thinking Smartly About Smart Contracts

I can now predict confidently that smart contracts are going to be a reality sooner than almost everyone has predicted. I say this because the push to adopt smart contracts will come from major corporate clients of law firms, whether the lawyers in those firms are ready or not. And firms that are not ready will find themselves faced with clients going somewhere else for a solution.

My friend and technology guru Dennis Kennedy has provided the playbook in his piece for Law Practice Magazine, Thinking Smartly About Smart Contracts. I have linked to his blog post about the article (which links to it) because some readers may want to get some background information about blockchain from another resource he has written that is also referenced there.

Why will smart contracts become so important so soon? Because this concept will be so easy for clients to understand and it will sound very good to many of them.

As lawyers understand, when you hold a contract in your hand that paper isn't really the contract, the contract is an agreement evidenced by the writing on the paper. See the Wikipedia definition of contract. A smart contract will be code rather than paper, although there may be printouts. The code is the contract. That's huge. A smart contract may then be connected to all of the parts of the contract's elements by blockchain. This may include everything from a human inspector who inspects goods to certify they are conforming and files a report via blockchain to the transfer of funds executed via blockchain. So when the code is executed properly, the contract has been executed properly and there will not be post-contract litigation.

For those of us in legal that is a breath-taking concept. For corporate clients, the idea of a smart contract eliminating post-contract litigation will be both breath-taking and a smart business decision. I can't say precisely how soon we will get there but I am convinced we will get there -- as is Dennis Kennedy. So read his feature.

Will the first smart contracts for routine consumer matters like used cars sales or real estate closings happen soon after or not for a long time? We will have to wait and see.

ABA TECHSHOW 2018: Why you should go and What you need to know

ABA TECHSHOW 2018 will be held March 7-10 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. It’s an important year to attend ABA TECHSHOW. Long-discussed changes are underway in our profession and many of them relate to technology. Many consumers are purchasing legal products online. Smart contracts powered by blockchain technology sound very realistic and appealing to large business clients. Lawyers now appreciate that some things shouldn’t be sent by unencrypted email, including QDRO’s, financial account numbers, social security numbers and confidential client advice. There are several alternatives to “regular” email that lawyers all need to understand.

Oklahoma Bar Association members can receive an ABA TECHSHOW registration discount by using promo code EP1908 when registering. The early bird registration deadline for ABA TECHSHOW 2018 has been extended until Monday, January 29.

We interviewed ABA TECHSHOW 2018 co-chairs Debbie Foster and Tom Mighell on our Digital Edge Podcast, Preview of ABA TECHSHOW 2018. As always, there are lots of interesting sessions and fun networking social events planned. You can either listen to the podcast or read the transcript at that link.

I’m speaking at ABA TECHSHOW on The 411 on Texting for Lawyers with Ivan Hemmans and Using Client Portals for Effective Collaboration with Arkansas attorney and first-time TECHSHOW presenter Brooke Moore. Brooke has an Arkansas-based virtual law practice at http://myvirtual.lawyer/. Ivan Hemmans is a Senior Manager of Technical Development at O’Melveny & Myers LLP.

I’m well-known as a fan of ABA TECHSHOW. It is my most valuable educational experience of the year–every year. There are opportunities to go out to dinner with the speakers as well as a massive vendor exhibit hall where you can talk to the people who develop the software you use.

I appreciate that your time is valuable. But ABA TECHSHOW provides valuable information and is a great experience. You do not want to miss ABA TECHSHOW 2018.

OBA-MAP Reading Room -- 2017 Wrapup

The OBA-MAP Reading Room is a month-by-month collection of things about law practice management, technology and the future of law that I found interesting and worthy of sharing. I don’t always do a blog post about each new Reading Room. But the last two months of 2017 yielded an embarrassment of riches. So I decided to pass along these link sets to my readers. 

The total is thirty great, if often discomforting, articles to read that will help you focus on the future direction of your law firm.

OBA-MAP Reading Room November 2017

November begins and ends with features from AttorneyatWork features. If you care anything about artificial intelligence and the practice of law you shouldn’t miss Running With The Experts: Takeaways From The 2017 Futures Conference and I have to acknowledge the final edition of Bob Denny’s annual wrap up, What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession (Say it’s not so Bob!). In between those items you’ll find two great features on VPN services, philosophical thoughts from Mark A. Cohen in Forbes Forbes on What's A Lawyer Now? And there is an absolute "must read" for solo and small firm lawyers primarily serving individuals: The Decline of the PeopleLaw Sector.

OBA-MAP Reading Room December 2017

Experts posted a lot of useful content in December as well. IPhoneJD's feature on iPhone charging tips is very useful. Law Departments and the Foundation of Law Firm Marketing BS is the more family-friendly title I’ve given to a great take by D. Casey Flaherty that will be of interest to larger law firms and legal departments. I also included several articles containing predictions, trends and other end of year content. And in case you missed it, there is a quite scary report from my podcast teammate Sharon Nelson that “E-mail Open Tracking Has Quietly Taken Over the Web.”

I hope each of you will find some interesting and challenging wintertime reading contained in these 30 featured articles. (OK, please note this correction. One was a podcast.)

‘Tis the Season: Tech Toys for the Holidays 2017 Podcast

It is that special gift-giving time of year and Sharon Nelson and I have the tech toys for your holiday gift-giving. Our ‘Tis the Season: Tech Toys for the Holidays 2017 Podcast is ready for your listening pleasure.

From doorbells to submarines, from smart watches to smart toilets, we cover a range of different ideas.

And, really, don't you think that special someone in your life would like a smart toilet as a gift? 😊 OK, maybe not. But we have several other ideas for you.

This podcast is a lot of fun to research and record. But it wouldn't be near as much fun if we didn't know that many listeners tell us how much they enjoy this one.

Have fun listening and Happy Holidays to every one!

 

Celebrating the 200th Episode of the Kennedy-Mighell Report

Keeping a podcast going for 11 years is quite the accomplishment, particularly for lawyers. The Internet is littered with lawyer blogs and podcasts that start strong, fade after a few months and are dead within a year.

But as regular listeners know, the Kennedy-Mighell Report is a consistently entertaining and informative production. (I should note a significant personal bias as the co-hosts are both long-term friends of mine.)

For the 200th episode of the Kennedy-Mighell Report, Dennis and Tom answer technology related questions from listeners (including yours truly). They provide a lot of great information, including about some of their favorite products.  Regular listeners of the podcast already know of Tom's interest in finding the best Bluetooth speaker of all. I noted his current recommendation. This is a very interesting podcast, although at over 47 minutes in length you need to set aside some time to take in it all.

Congratulations to Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell on a long podcasting run and another great podcast. We will expect even more from episode 201.