Jim Calloway's Law Practice Tips Blog

Opening a New Law Practice

Next week is our Opening Your Law Practice program here in Oklahoma, but one of the major resources we provide is available online to all lawyers.

We at the Oklahoma Bar Association Management Assistance Program team put on this program three times a year right after the new lawyers admission ceremony. Next week, the daylong class will be held October 3 at the Tulsa County Bar and October 4 at the Oklahoma Bar Center in Oklahoma City. Earlier this week 205 applicants became Oklahoma-licensed lawyers. We wish all of them would attend our program, whether they are opening up their own law practice or not, because we provide a lot of information about manage a law practice. You can see the class schedules at the links above.

If you are interested in starting a new law practice, you’re welcome to visit our OBA-MAP Starting a Law Practice Web Directory. There are quite a few downloadable documents and links to many resources, including many of those published by other state bar associations who have practice management advisors like myself on staff. Between our resources and their resources, there is a lot of valuable information completely for free.

All Oklahoma lawyers are welcomed to take this free training. We do accept walk-ins, but would appreciate it if lawyers who want to attend would contact my assistant Nickie Day before close of business Friday, September 29 so we can have sufficient lunches for everyone. For many years now, lunch for the attendees at this program has been graciously provided by Oklahoma Attorneys Mutual Insurance Company.

This program is primarily about the business of law, which today includes much more about  technology than it would have many years ago. While we will have mostly brand-new lawyers in the audience, in the past we’ve had a mix of attendees including lawyers leaving large firms, recently retired judges and district attorneys. It is an in-person attendance only event. One of my favorite comments was from a retired judge who told me afterwards “This was an incredibly valuable seminar because it became very clear to me that I don’t want to do all that stuff.” He works as a mediator for a mediation practice now and is quite happy with that decision.

Some lawyers open a new practice directly out of law school because it is been their long term dream. Some open their own practice because they didn’t find employment after graduation. Some join an established small firm practice that could use a bit of updating with its processes. Helping new lawyers begin and seeing their excitement at the beginning of their careers is one of the most satisfying things I get to do.

Client Portals: Now More Important than Ever

My "Big Idea" for the Big Ideas issue of Law Practice Magazine was a column titled The Law Firm Portal: A Must-Have Client Service Tool. I hope you can take the time to read it.

In all honesty perhaps the biggest idea today for solo and small firm lawyers (who have not already done so) is to work from digital client files, powered by practice management software which allows lawyers to securely communicate with clients via secure client portals and reduces the use of insecure email with clients.

Darla Jackson, Oklahoma Bar Association Practice Management Advisor, and I did a webcast for the American Bar Association called “Client Portals: Why Attorneys are Flocking to Them” earlier this year early this year. It is still available on demand. The ABA apparently had one of their writers attend the program and that summary was circulated to the entire ABA membership in June: Why attorneys are flocking to client portals. It is a quite good summary of the program and the concept.

Now the world has watched as hurricanes have destroyed and damaged many buildings in Texas and Florida. There really cannot be a better argument for preserving client information in a manner where it can be easily accessed to be used for the client's benefit. In the even of a natural disaster, as soon as both the lawyer and the client locate electricity and an internet connection giving access to a cloud-based practice management system or portal provider, the law firm is operating and there are secure communications with the client, no matter who might be excluded from office or home.

Darla Jackson will also be presenting a program on client portals at the Oklahoma Bar Association Annual Meeting in November 2017.

BIg Ideas from Law Practice Magazine

The Big Ideas issue of Law Practice Magazine is one of my favorite publications each year. As a member of the LP Magazine board, I love watching it take shape.

The most recent Big Ideas issue not only has great content, but also one of my favorite covers for the magazine ever.

Among the many great articles contained in this issue is Transforming a Law Practice with Technology by Nick Gaffney, one on how legal operations professionals can bring a data-driven approach to law firm budgets, and an article entitled Gray but Not Gone by Roberta Tapper and Elizabeth Deane, which focuses on the role of senior attorneys who do not wish to retire. There are also columns on artificial intelligence in the practice of law, the current state of digital maps and the Legal Board, a keyboard design for lawyers.

Brooke Moore writes “Client Driven Firms: the Future of Law Is Now.” There can be no more true statement today about the future of law practice today than this one. Clients are pressuring the law firms that serve them to improve.

Summer may be ending, but your summer reading list hasn't been completed until you have digested the big ideas contained in this great Law Practice magazine.

Podcast: Evernote for Lawyers- Manage Your Research, Marketing, and Process

I attended Heidi Alexander's presentation on Evernote for Lawyers at ABA TECHSHOW 2017 and thought at the time that she should be a guest on our Digital Edge podcast to talk about Evernote. As it turned out we were able to arrange that fairly quickly. Sharon Nelson and I are pleased to allow Heidi an opportunity to further showcase her expertise in our podcast Evernote for Lawyers- Manage Your Research, Marketing, and Process where she discusses basic features for the beginner and tips for the advanced users.

Earlier this year, the American Bar Association published Heidi's book Evernote as a Law Practice Tool.  Read some excerpts from the book here. There is even a ebook edition.

I think Evernote and its now-free competition Microsoft OneNote meet a basic need for lawyers more as a free form digital notebook than as a note-taking app. I love the ability to capture web pages so I can easily find and read them later. But both of these have powerful note-taking features. Personally I like the theory of using both Evernote and OneNote, one for personal matters and the other for business.

But that approach means that you may not become a power user of either program. So I'd encourage you to read all of the linked resources above and see if Evernote is the tool you can use or if your basic use can be upgraded to power user.

But first, enjoy the podcast.

The Barron Henley Tour Stops in Oklahoma - Mastering Microsoft Word in The Law Office

What tools do you primarily use in your law office? For most law firms, high up on the list of most-used tools are email and Microsoft Word. Law firms produce documents−lots of documents. Considering how much effort is expended each day producing documents, it is somewhat surprising that many law firms and their support staff are not that skilled at using Microsoft Word. Many of us started out as WordPerfect users. But Word and WordPerfect work entirely differently and  skills with one program do not translate to the other.

One of the very best instructors I have ever seen on Microsoft Word for lawyers is Barron K. Henley with the Affinity Consulting Group. He is coming to Oklahoma this month to teach Mastering Microsoft Word in The Law Office this week. This is a great program to improve office productivity.

Here are the links to see the schedule with all of the topics covered and for registration. 
Tulsa on April 20 http://bit.ly/BHenleyCLETulsa
Oklahoma City on April 21. http://bit.ly/BHenleyCLEOKC

April 21 will also be a live webcast that will not be repeated or rerun. This is the enrollment link for the webinar. http://bit.ly/BHenleyWordWebcast

I already know of at least one lawyer who has enrolled for the webcast with the plan that his legal assistant will be "auditing" the class along with him, learning as well. If you are not an Oklahoma Bar Association member and want to attend the webcast on Friday, you will need to call Renee Montgomery at 405-416-7029 before 1:00 p.m. on Thursday April 20th to enroll.

I interviewed Barron for my column two years ago in Law Practice magazine, Your Document Czar. Go read that if you need any additional motivation.

“You can use Word for twenty-five years and your skill level will be the same as it was approximately 2 weeks into using it,” says Henley. “Many of the features are hidden, so you won’t stumble onto them.”

 The TECHSHOW Edition of Law Practice Magazine

It is the week of ABA TECHSHOW and a good way to get warmed up is to check out the TECHSHOW edition of Law Practice Magazine.

The cover story is A Golden Age of Legal Tech Start-Ups by Bob Ambrogi. Other features cover topics from legal incubators to e-signatures. Columns include my observations on Managing the Robots, Tom Mighell on the Battle of the Workplace Messaging Apps, Pete Roberts on A 'Periodic Table' of Law Firm Profitability for Small Firms and Sharon Nelson and John W. Simek on Securing Your Law Firm's Website: A Critical Cybersecurity Task.

If you think managing all of the lawyers and staff in a law firm is a challenge, just wait for that day (coming sooner than you think) when you also have to manage the robots working for your law firm. Despite the cool graphic the magazine production team found to illustrate Managing the Robots, I don’t think we are likely to see humanoid robots in law firms anytime soon. But I do think we are about to see more and more automated processes powered by smart technology systems. This brings up many challenges for firms that are used to supervising people as opposed to perfecting and managing automated processes.

Which partner or partners try to lay claim to the machine-generated profits will just be the first (and loudest) of these issues.

I hope to see you at ABA TECHSHOW this week.

 

Suggested Articles and Posts from January and February in the Reading Room

Our monthly Reading Room features reading suggestions for you from January and February, 2017 which cover a wide range of topics for the forward-thinking lawyer. Topics include "white dwarf law firms," the Smart Person's Guide to Apple's iCloud Keychain, the ABC's of Marketing and Business Development for Lawyers, dictation methods on the iPhone, blockchain for lawyers, a  new JP Morgan AI software program that saves 360,000 hours of staff and lawyer time,  Six Fundamentals For Handling Client Confidences, the Top Twenty-Two Most Interesting e-Discovery Opinions of 2016 and How An Introvert Can Build A Thriving Practice.

Visit our January 2017 Reading Room and our February 2017 Reading Room.

How to Ethically Use Technology in Your Practice - Free Webinar this week

I am teaching a free webinar on Wednesday February 8, 2017 at 1:00 pm CENTRAL time. It is titled: How to Ethically Use Technology in Your Practice

It is sponsored by MyCase. Here is the information:

Keeping client confidences secure in the digital age is not always easy, but it certainly is necessary. It seems like there’s always some new technology tool or gadget that lawyers are told they “have to” use.

Jim Calloway, director of the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Management Assistance Program, will talk about how to ethically use today’s technology and which emerging tools are important for lawyers.

Register for our free 60 minute webinar on Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET to learn about:

    Why lawyers cannot ethically avoid using technology tools
    Digital security – It’s your responsibility
    Encryption of email to clients - now required?
    The risks and benefits of cloud computing
    Emerging technology tools that benefit lawyers and their clients

No Oklahoma MCLE credit is offered.

Register at http://info.mycase.com/MC-WBNR-022017-JimCalloway_LP_Reg.html

Automation in Today’s Law Firm

The idea for my column, Automation in Today’s Law Firm, came during a holiday evening in the Calloway household, when my spouse and I were setting up several automated tasks, none of which had anything to do with the Internet of Things.

There has been much discussion among futurists and technologists about how robots and artificial intelligence were moving on from taking the jobs of factory workers to threatening knowledge workers, like lawyers. Yet, some law firms have not implemented some simple and easy-to-use automation tools that are available today.

So Automation in Today’s Law Firm is about automation projects you can do today and, that some readers already have incorporated. I end with a few more sophisticated automation tools like IFTTT (If This Then That) and Zapier. These two are not widely in use in the legal profession, but definitely are in use in the legal profession.

Full-blown massive law office automation projects are beyond the scope of the column, but here is some additional reading on automation and artificial intelligence not included in the column:

Benefits and the Climb of Legal Automation by Sarah A. McCromick

Biglaw Automation: Whose Job Goes First? by Michael Allen

How automation is changing the legal profession - an October 2015 roundtable discussion by Gwynne Monahan

How artificial intelligence is transforming the legal profession by Julie Sobowale (ABA Journal April 2016 cover story)

Several hundred academic articles are available for free download at Vanderbilt law School's Artificial Intelligence - Law, Policy, & Ethics eJournal on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Some provocative titles include Using Machine Learning to Predict Outcomes in Tax Law, Siri-ously 2.0: What Artificial Intelligence Reveals about the First Amendment , and for Issac Asimov fans, The Three Laws of Robotics in the Age of Big Data. My favorite title (even thought I didn't read the paper) was Do Driverless Cars Dream of Electric Sheep?

Hope to see you at ABA TECHSHOW 2017

Smart use of technology is more important in law firms today than ever before, particularly as the majority of states have added a comment to their Rules of Professional Conduct that lawyers need to appreciate “the risks and benefits of relevant technology” as they serve their clients. ABA TECHSHOW 2017 will be held March 15-18, 2017 at the Chicago Hilton and you won’t find a better place to learn about the risks and benefits of today’s law firm technology.

Oklahoma Bar Association members can receive a substantial discount on ABA TECHSHOW registration by using Event Promoter code EP1716 when they register and everyone should save by registering by the Early Bird Deadline of January 30, 2017. Other bars are also Event Promoters as you can see here.

ABA TECHSHOW is unique because no other conference has a combination of so many CLE credit-granting presentations, such a huge vendor floor of law office technology services & products and a diverse group of attendees and faculties that include some of the top legal technologists in North America.

As you make your decision on whether to attend ABA TECHSHOW, I encourage you to spend a moment looking at the schedule of presentations on the TECHSHOW website. I’m sure you will find many interesting offerings and some presentations on topics you’ve never even considered. Not only will you be able to attend many of these CLE sessions, but you will receive the ABA TECHSHOW flash drive with the written materials for all of these sessions. You will also receive PDF copies of the presenter’s PowerPoints. I refer back to my ABA TECHSHOW flash drive many times each year.

Register now for ABA TECHSHOW 2017. I hope to see you there and I hope to see a lot of my fellow Oklahoma lawyers there this year.