Legal Ease Blog

Do Lawyers Really Need Practice Management Software?

Earlier this week on the JD Hacker blog, Will Geer posted "Do You Really Need Practice Management Software?" His answer was no, but I'm not so sure - I think his post missed some of the big reasons to have practice management software.

Geer opines that most lawyers purchase practice management software for document management, but that this is a 'ridiculous' reason for making this purchase. He sets out a system for storing documents in your operating system, which is the default method for most solos and small law firms (and even some mid-sized firms). He goes on to describe this system, complete with folders for each client and subfolders for individual document types, as well as his naming system for those folders.

While this system sounds logical and can work for a while, as a practical matter, it has a number of pitfalls which I have, unfortunately, witnessed first-hand both in the law firms I worked in as an associate and as a partner, but also in the law firms I work with as a consultant.

First, creating a file folder for each client makes sense, it doesn't help if you have a number of different matters for the same client. Geer suggests that this is easily solved by naming the folders with the full name of the engagement, but this can also get confusing, and as your client base and the number of engagements with your office grows, you'll find that duplicates and other complications often arise. What happens if you have a practice in which you have a large number of cases with a particular client (for example, if you do insurance coverage work or all of the litigation for a particular company)? Long folder names can get cumbersome quickly.

Geer next suggests creating subfolders within each client's file for managing documents, and suggests folder names such as "pleadings, discovery, client communication, correspondence, documents and trial." But these categories are open for broad interpretation. Does a letter to a client go in correspondence or client communication? If you're in New York, does the bill of particulars get filed under pleadings or discovery? Does a witness statement get filed in documents or trial? If it is exchanged by another party during discovery, does it get filed under discovery? If a piece of correspondence addresses discovery issues, is it filed under correspondence or discovery?

While some of these issues can be resolved by creating rules within your office for electronic filing of documents, even those rules can get out of hand, and no set of rules will be able to account for every single document created or received in your practice.

Practice management software eliminates many of these headaches because the documents can be categorized as above (and multiple categories can be assigned to a single document), but search and retrieval of documents is much easier.

With regard to naming of documents, I am often baffled by lawyers who insist on saving documents and naming them using the date. Your operating system allows you to sort documents by date regardless of how they are named, so naming them using the date is not only redundant, but is another area open for error because many will forget to use the necessary zeros, causing documents to be out of order anyway. And all of those numbers before the name of the document makes scanning through a document list for a particular document type or name difficult.

Filing documents by file type also isn't necessarily productive or helpful - should it matter whether a document is a pdf or a word file in most instances? When you are searching for a particular document, is its format most important? Consider naming documents using criteria that you would use most often to search for them, or names that give you some idea of the substance of the document itself, to make the document easier to identify during your search.

If you are filing documents in client subfolders, it is also not necessary to include the name of the client in the file name - the document is already stored in that client's folder. The longer the file name, the more confusing it is and the less likely it is that you'll be able to see the entire name on your screen in some formats. Easy and simple but descriptive should be the order of the day. You should name documents in a way that allows you to tell at a glance what the document contains so that you dont' have to open multiple documents to find what you are looking for. While it is true that each operating system has its own search function, many of these search functions are not as robust as those that are made a part of practice management software packages.

Another big advantage of practice management software is its ability to link clients with matters and documents with clients or matters. You can easily see what work has been done for a particular client across multiple files, and any document created on a particular file is also linked to that client and contact - along with to-dos or tasks for that client and upcoming dates or calendar entries. This is a big advantage when communicating with clients, because you have all of the information at your fingertips, without having to search several different applications (Word processing, email, calendar, etc.) and individual client matters for information - you can get it all through the client interface.

Practice managemetn software also is a huge time saver when a client's information changes. Instead of having to go into each file separately to note an address change, a contact name change, telephone number change, etc., the change can be made once in the client's information screen and it will automatically be applied to each of that client's matters. Over and over I have seen law firms struggle with address, telephone number or contact person name changes where files and information are stored in individual file folders because lawyers and staff either are not informed of the change or they forget to make the change in each individual file.

Conflicts are another area of concern that can be addressed with practice management software. While it may be easy to determine whether you've ever represented a particular party before, it may not be as easy to determine whether you represented another party (such as a codefendant) with adverse interests without a robust database of information.

Practice management programs integrated with time and billing programs can help you not only create and assemble documents using information stored in the system (rather than constantly re-typing the same information over and over), but can help you track and bill your time for those activities as they're being performed (if you must bill hourly).

Is practice management software an absolute must? Probably not, but the advantages in productivity and efficiency and the time and effort it saves is well worth it - especially if you're not a true solo and you need to share information with staff and other attorneys.

Will alternative fee arrangements be profitable for lawyers?

Last week’s Legal Business Development Blog entry was part 16 on a series on alternative billing, entitled, “Alternative Fees (Part 16) - Win-win or win-lose?” The article opines that firms who are talking about their success with alternative fee arrangements may be over-stating their success, particularly in the short term.

The article suggests that some who have begun using fixed fees are not seeing additional profits above their hourly work. There was some discussion on one of my legal list serves last week pointing to this article as an example of why fixed fees won’t work, particularly in litigation. I’m not sure that conclusion was valid – even based on this article.  There seems to be a lot of information missing. For example, how are these firms calculating profits? Are they basing profits on hours? Are these firms staffing and working files the same way for hourly work as for fixed fee work? Have they implemented project management, technology and other productivity and efficiency boosting measures? Are their calculations taking into account the benefits of fixed fees with regard to time records and billing and collections issues?

When firms say that most of their non-hourly work is ‘less profitable’ than their hourly work, are they comparing non-hourly and hourly work on the same kinds of matters or on different kinds of matters (are they comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges)? What kind of fixed fee or non-hourly arrangements are we talking about here? None of these issues seems to be directly addressed in the article.

It doesn’t surprise me that the article indicated that the larger the firm was, the less profitable the reported non-hourly work. Large firms were built and staffed for and are used to working on an hourly basis, and they may not have adapted their processes to a non-hourly system.

It’s also telling that the article points out that, “Lawyers have been rewarded for their entire careers for putting in extra hours to analyze every risk from every possible angle.  Most lawyers will have a hard time delivering the quality they are comfortable with when they must work within hourly limits.” Placing ‘hourly limits’ on a matter isn’t the same as creating a true non-hourly billing system and fee structure - it’s merely capping the hours (or capping the fee and then trying to fit that into an old hourly mindset). That’s trying to change only half of the system – the way the client pays, rather than changing the whole system, including the lawyer’s reliance on hours as a basis for value.

That same paragraph goes on to talk about expecting lawyers to be productive for a certain number of hours, and finding those goals unreachable if some work is billed on a fixed fee basis. But why should the firm care if a lawyer is ‘productive’ for 2000 hours a year unless they’re still stuck in an hourly mindset? (And I’d challenge the idea that lawyers are ‘productive’ for 2000 or any other specific number of hours a year just because they’ve previously billed that number of hours per year).

The goal of fixed fees isn’t necessarily to make MORE money than you would make on the same matter billed on an hourly basis. The goal is to create a fee structure that your clients can understand and buy into, that doesn’t create conflicts between lawyer and client, and that rewards lawyers who can manage well, staff appropriately, resolve disputes expeditiously and work efficiently. In addition, it eliminates a lot of the traditional conflicts between lawyers and clients that are inherent in the hourly billing system, and it focuses on the knowledge, skill and ability of the lawyer in achieving the service and outcomes a client seeks, rather than focusing merely on hours expended. 

As the article correctly notes, increased competition is likely to drive down prices, particularly in this economy. So whether you’re billing hourly or not, you may see clients who are seeking to pay less for legal services – unless you can convince them that the value of those services justifies the fee. In my opinion, that’s harder to do on a pure hourly system. But even if it isn’t, it may be unrealistic to compare the profitability of work this year to the profitability of work last year in light of today's economic climate. Blaming it on the fee structure doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story.

Working with alternative fee structures and setting fixed fees is not necessarily 'easy.' It takes trial and error and a lot of work and specific discussions with clients up front. Change is never easy.People are used to the hourly billing system so it seems easier, but is it really? Just look at all of the problems and complaints it creates. Hourly billing has its own challenges with write downs, write offs, and constant challenges to the amount of time a task 'should have' taken. 

Might shifting to a non-hourly billing structure mean a loss in the short term? It most certainly might. But if it results in a long term gain, increased client loyalty and a better client base, (or even one of the above), it’s still probably worth it. Is the fact that it may be 'difficult,' (especially at first) to implement a reason to give up on alternative fee structures?

If, as the article suggests, alternative fees are going to be more and more prevalent, lawyers are going to have to learn how they can use them or risk losing clients. In some cases, they may be ‘less profitable’ than hourly fees, but less profit is better than no profit - and for some firms, the amount of ‘profit’ that they were making on particular matters might not have been reasonable in the first place.

The Busy Lawyer's Guide to Success

The Busy Lawyer’s Guide to Success - Essential Tips to Power Your Practice by Dan Pinnington and Reid F. Trautz is one of the ABA Law Practice Management section’s newest books. This book is only 132 pages long, but it is packed with powerful insights and tips for your practice. It’s small enough to fit into any lawyer's bag or briefcase and it belongs in every one.

An easy read, the book is broken up into sections and provides short, to the point statements that can be implemented easily and effectively. If you choose one section (or even one page), take the tips to heart and take action, you’ll see a difference in your practice.

If you’ve ever attended ABA Techshow, you know that the ’60 tips’ sessions are among the most popular and well-attended sessions in all of Techshow. This book is like an extended version of one of those lightning-fast tips sessions. It’s broken down into these essential sections:

• Client Service
• Marketing and Client Development
• Technology
• Coping with Email (it’s such a pain it needs a chapter all its own)
• Making (More) Money
• Ethics & Professionalism
• Management, Operations and Staff
• Strategy and Planning

Yes, the book is short. It’s written that way on purpose. The authors, busy, active lawyers themselves, know how valuable a lawyer's time is. They know you don’t want a big heavy book that you aren’t going to have time to read anyway. They’ve dispensed with long explanations and extra verbiage and distilled the book and each of their tips down to its core. The result? You get a book filled with just the ‘good stuff.’ You don’t need to search it out – it’s there on every page. For those of you that want more, they’ve included a Learning More section which points you in the direction of other resources on these topics.

Creating a book that’s comprised just of those golden nuggets undoubtedly took an awful lot of editing. It’s often easier to write something long than it is to write something short, because the short takes more editing. Your words need to be more precise. So if you’re wondering whether this ‘little’ book is worth the ‘big’ price, think about how much time (which, unfortunately, for most of you still translates into billable hours) these two guys saved you by giving you only the good stuff.

Still don’t believe me? Perhaps this will entice you:

• Check out pages 25-28 for a step by step individual marketing plan that you can start working on today.

• To find out which are your highest and lowest value clients, use the client report card found on Page 65.

• Learn how to conduct productive meetings by incorporating tips from pages 94-96 and 102-105.

You can get your copy of the book through the ABA ($69.95 for non-members, $44.95 for LPM members), or you can pre-order it from Amazon.com for $44.07, but it isn’t available yet.

Tips for Effective Law Firm Hiring

This is the final post in my series on tips from the "Get a Life" conference, sponsored by the Total Practice Management Association - this time on hiring.

Tim Ryan from Total PMA gave one of the most engaging and effective presentations from the conference, on a topic that directly affects both the bottom line and the quality of life at law firms - hiring. Payroll is usually a firm's biggest expense, and poor hiring decisions impact morale, productivity, client relations - and just about everything else in the firm.

Many lawyers lament that it's hard to find good people. What kind of staff do you have? If they left, would you be in trouble, or would you breathe a sigh of relief?

Ryan made a great point during his presentation about the reason why many law firms are not successful when it comes to hiring: they hire using a job description, rather than a people description. Ryan recommended taking a look at your best employees (the ones he calls your 'rock star' employees). Identify the behavior, thinking and attitudes that make them great. Use that information to create a blueprint for future hires.

How prepared are you when interviewing staff for a position? Are you reviewing the resume five minutes before the candidate arrives? If you are, you need to re-think your hiring process.

Here are some of Ryan’s general tips about hiring:

• Certain traits are cultural and are required for every position; many employees fail because of a poor cultural fit - not an inability to do the job

• You can compromise on education, but not on talent or culture [skills can be taught, but values and cultural fit cannot]

• Spend time up front benchmarking the people description/behavior profile - you won't change bad behavior once the person is hired

• In an interview ask for substantive, real life examples that demonstrate that candidate behaves in line with your behavior blueprint

• Don't interpret interview questions for candidate - it's giving them the answers. If a candidate is struggling to answer your questions, they may just not have what it takes

• Don't give interview candidates credit where credit isn't due and don’t make excuses for their inability to respond 

• Remember during the interview that you are looking for behavior – make sure answers are substantive and don’t try to shift blame to others

• When you're comparing candidate to candidate to make a hiring decision, you set yourself up to hire the tallest pygmy – in other words, comparing among candidates doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll get the right person for the job – NONE of the candidates you have now may be right for the job. If that’s the case, keep looking

Ryan also reminds us that in addition to hiring the right people, sometimes you have to fire the wrong people. If you continue to allow 'bad' employees to remain, what does it say to the people who matter - your “rock stars”?

Hire slowly, fire quickly. But fire people in a way that allows them to keep their dignity.

Systematize, Delegate and Outsource

Today's post focuses on more advice from speakers at this year's Total PMA Get a Life Conference, including advice from the panel on outsourcing, featuring Alexis Neely and Max Gardner and advice from Stephen Fairley about law firm systems and marketing because systems, delegation and outsourcing combine powerfully to make you and your firm more productive.

Outsourcing

When outsourcing, you must also consider security and confidentiality concerns. Make sure that those you hire to do work for you understand the attorney-client privilege and confidentiality issues. Have security in place so that outsourced work is protected.

The golden rule of outsourcing (from Alexis Neely):  Focus on what you love to do, what provides most value for your business, and what you're great at - outsource the rest.

Why use a virtual assistant? Max Gardner says that using virtual assistants eliminates concerns rabout benefits, vacations, payroll functions, while providing you with the extra hands to get the work done

Max Gardner also advises that, in his experience, a virtual assistant with no legal background is often better than someone who has worked for another firm. Usually, the other firm the assistant worked for doesn’t do things the same way you do. In addition, the assistant might have picked up some ‘bad habits’ from the former firm. Hiring someone with skills and the right attitude allows you to train them to provide the kind of work you want provided.

Be careful about the constraints you place on virtual assistants – you do not want them to become de facto employees. Become familiar with the rules regarding independent contractors and be sure that you are not over-stepping.

Alexis Neely recommends that if you have staff, you should get out of your office. If you’re in the office, it’s easy for your team to get lazy and just ask you to take care of things for them. But if you aren’t available, your team can often figure out the problem or issue and handle it on their own. If you want your team to rely on you less, freeing you up to do other things, make yourself scarce.

Why don’t more lawyers outsource work? I think that some resistance to outsourcing is just fear. Lawyers are afraid of change, of technology, and of the confidentiality issues. Sometimes they think that they’re better off just doing it on their own. Delegating effectively – whether within your firm or to others outside of your firm – is a skill. To learn how to delegate effectively see my posts on delegation: Do Something! Delegate Effectively, Even if You're a Solo and Do Something! How to Delegate Effectively (Part II).

Finally, Max Gardner recommends that you "Think INSIDE the box. Get things organized and systematized within your office."  And that leads us directly into Stephen Fairley’s presentation –

Create systems that will help you to grow your practice

Stephen Fairley advises that organization and systematization are important for all law firms. Systems you need include: client intake, client education, client retention, referral development, marketing and business development and Key Performance Indicator tracking.

Fairley emphasized how imperative these systems are for the working of your firm, saying that you need the right systems in your firm: “The people run your systems, but the systems run your law firm.”

One of the best systems to institute for your practice is a system for follow up with new contacts. Studies have shown that clients don't make buying decisions (including the decision to hire a lawyer) until there have been between 7 and 20 contacts with you. But 90% of lawyers give up before or after only four contacts. If you’re one of those lawyers, adding a fifth contact would probably add 10-15% to your business.

Fairley recommends using autoresponders to automate your follow up process with web visitors as well as strategic alliances.He recommends Aweber for autoresponder service; I use them for my email newsletter and autoresponders for other purposes.

According to Fairley, the #1 goal of your website is to capture leads. But recognize that 85% of your visitors to your website will stay less than 30 seconds and will never return. That means you've got a VERY short window of time in order to capture your web visitor's attention. And when that attention is captured, you want to capture their contact information so that you have permission to keep in touch with them – creating those all-important multiple contacts. He suggests that you get leads by giving free information in exchange for contact information from web visitors.

An e-newsletter is one way that firms stay in touch with their clients on a regular basis and offer free information to them. But your e-newsletter can get lost in a mountain of email. Include personal touches so that your list looks forward to receiving your email newsletter, and supplement the e-newsletter with personal touches, too.

Remember that your e-newsletter is only one part of your overall marketing plan. It can't do all of the work for you, but it can do a good job of automating some contact with your client and referral base on a regular basis - every 4-6 weeks is recommended. This is not too much contact if you’re providing value - from your reader's perspective.

Thinking of starting your own firm newsletter? Check out these tips from one of my previous posts about firm newsletters.

 

More on Work/Life Balance for Lawyers

I recently posted about work/life balance in "It's more important than ever for lawyers to 'Get a Life.'" Now, an update.

The ABA Journal Law News Now posted an online article entitled, "Are We Closing the Book on Work/Life Balance?" picking up on Jordan Furlong's post on Law 21: The legacy of work-life balance.

Furlong notes that although work-life balance (or WLB) was 'all the rage' only a few short years ago, the economy may be signaling the end of the WLB movement. He says:

Most lawyers seeking WLB were really seeking an answer to the question: “Does a legal career have to be all-consuming and exhausting?” ... 

The whole thing got wrapped up too often in buzzwords like “personal fulfillment,” “family time,” and WLB, but what it really came down to was lawyers’ rational response to market conditions. They had a chance to get more rewards for their time and effort — unfortunately, many of them chose those rewards in $160,000 annual packages.

...

Where proponents of “work-life balance” went off-track, to my mind, was that they argued the duty to ensure a satisfactory proportion between a lawyer’s work and the rest of her life was an institutional responsibility — that it was up to the law firm, basically. The  firms disagreed, and all they had to do was wait for the marketplace to turn their way to make that clear.

...

The thing is, “work-life balance” is a lawyer’s personal choice and responsibility. If money and “prestige” are that important to you, you’ll sign up to work 3,000 hours a year at a law firm, and you can reap the rewards and suffer the personal consequences accordingly.

Furlong goes on to say that one of the problems is that the 'unspoken symbiosis between law schools and law firms - the law schools charge large sums for legal education but provide little or no practical training, resulting in newly-minted lawyers with large indebtedness but low skills. These lawyers are then hired by big firms who can offer high salaries that will allow students to make a dent in their loans, and provide training - often requiring endless hours of work.

I don't believe that the most proponents of WLB looked at it as an entitlement that law firms were obligated to provide, or that a lucrative, prestigious legal career and a personally fulfilling life are mutually exclusive. What WLB seeks is for all lawyers - as a profession - to tackle the issues facing members of the profession. It is clear that the demands of the profession as it exists currently have resulted in an increase in lawyer dissatisfaction, alcoholism, depression and other ills.

For some lawyers, WLB has been wrongfully interpreted as an entitlement mentality or as a euphamism for laziness and an aversion to working hard or providing excellent client experience. I couldn't disagree more, as I noted in my previous post. Indeed, WLB is all about being a professional and providing a professional level of service to clients, creating a lucrative legal career and a healthy personal life. A tall order? Perhaps, but that doesn't mean it's impossible - although many of the current 'norms' in the legal profession make it so.

Being harnessed to the billable hour, which reduces a lawyer's value to the hours logged, rather than to the solutions and service provided to clients, is one such 'norm' that needs serious change. Billable hours are a rather unprofessional measure of worth - certainly not one that acknowleges lawyers as knowledge workers.

But as noted in many of the comments to Jordan's post, WLB isn't just a debate about billable hours and going home early. Lawyers need opportunities for professional growth and development, intellectual stimulation, collegiality, and personal time - and they need them not just for themselves, but for the good of the firms and clients, too.

As noted in my previous post on this issue, in order to be intellectually challenged, to come to work with your best foot forward and to provide your clients with the excellent service they deserve, you've got to have balance in your life. Healthy lawyers do better work for their clients and their firms. Lawyers who are supported personally and professionally by their firms will do better work for those firms and are likely to be more loyal to those firms. Stressed out, angry, unfulfilled lawyers who are battling personal issues at home (or worse, who are unable to develop strong personal relationships outside of the office) aren't likely to be particularly effective.

In an article entitled, Situation re-evaluation:creating balance, author Kate DeBevois cites a 2009 study of over 50,000 global workers which indicates that employees who feel they have achieved work-life balance work, on average, 21 percent harder than employees who feel they have not achieved work-life balance.  And, as professional organizer and life coach Dorothy Breininger notes in the same article, "Where there’s difficulty in one area of life, chances are, it will show up in most areas of life.” 

While big firms may not be willing to make changes in this regard (particularly in this economy, when they feel their associates are just lucky to have jobs), clients may demand it. And firms that want to continue to attract top talent - both from law schools and laterally - will need to address these issues, since top talent will always have other options and opportunities. When clients defect in larger numbers to smaller firms and lawyers defect to smaller firms or solo practices - or even larger firms that are committed to innovation, creativity, professional development AND work/life balance, perhaps the big firms will finally see the light.

Furlong says, "What we were groping towards, under the banner of WLB, was the gnawing sense that most everyone starts their legal career behind the eight-ball for no particularly good reason." But WLB issues are limited to younger lawyers. While the issues Furlong cites may be the WLB issues faced by newer lawyers in large firms, the majority of lawyers in the U.S. are solo practitioners or work in small firms. Work/life balance issues affect all lawyers, regardless of the length of their experience or the size of their practice.

Furlong concludes his post saying,  "There are still some serious institutional problems for our profession to resolve — dealing with them openly and effectively would be the kind of legacy “work-life balance” deserves." Only too true - which is why it isn't time to 'close the book' on work-life balance yet.

(Hat tip to Kevin Chern of Total Attorneys, for pointing out the DeBevois article).

How lawyers can 'bulletproof' their best clients

Gerry Riskin gave two separate presentations at this year's Get a Life conference. His pearls of wisdom were invaluable.

According to Riskin, studies show that only 30.7% of clients recommend their primary law firm. That leaves a lot of room for client poaching - and it means that the vast majority of clients aren't referring others to their lawyers.

Competition in the legal arena is fierce. Competitors can draw clients away from you by creating a 'cool offering,' listening to clients, understanding and meeting their needs, caring & showing they care, being responsive and handling problems. If you're not already doing the same, you're vulnerable. Identify and 'bulletproof' your best clients by meeting them at their place of business for the purpose of discovering and meeting the client's needs (off the clock!).

Riskin reminds lawyers that latent client needs can only be unearthed through active collaboration with the client - you'll never know unless you're constantly working with and listening to your clients.

Unfortunately, although most lawyers are good at getting the substantive legal work done, they aren't as successful at completing 'non-billable' work - including important business development and client relationship work. But the good news is that it doesn't take much to change that. According to Riskin's "slight edge" theory, the difference between winners and losers is action - but it only takes marginal moves to be a winner. In other words, you need to be only slightly better, but consistently so.

Finally, Riskin noted that lawyers think differently than other people - which doesn't always work to their advantage. They are perfectionists. Lawyers need to learn that it's OK to make mistakes - they need to TRY things that aren't going to work.

It is only through trial and error - taking action - that real progress can be made.

At the end of one of his presentations, there were some questions about what lawyers should do when they practice in an area which is generally comprised of 'one time' clients. Lawyers often make the mistake of thinking that a client is a one-time client, in part because they fail to identify those latent client needs and fail to establish long term relationships with them.  Kevin Chern of Total PMA pointed out that 'one time' clients don't have to be. I agree - and I wrote about it in a post entitled "There's No Such Thing as a "One-Off" Client.

 

Poor Client Service is Easy to Find

Recently, attorney Leanna Hamill related the following tale about bad client experience:

I'm having the rather unfortunate experience of having to interview and select realtors to sell my dad's house (anyone wanting to buy a fixer-upper on the ocean in beautiful Scituate, MA. let me know).

I spent half the day on Monday at the house showing the realtors around. One of them went on and on about her own house and her own cottage and wasn't going to be able to start showing it until the end of June because she had family visiting and then they had an open house for "1.5 million, so we really need to take care of that one."  Then when she emails me first she calls me "Deanna" and in her next email she calls me "Leanne."

One company had a horribe gruff person answering the phone, so I didn't even use them.

Leanna's Tips based on her experience:

Tip #1: Don't make your potential client feel like the rest of your life is more important than she is (even though it is.)

Tip #2: Don't make your potential client feel like their case will get less attention because of the size of it.

Tip #3: Have someone good answering your phone. 

Tip #4: Get your [potential] client's name right!

Bad client service stories like Leanna's are far too easy to find. But the good news is that since client service is universally so bad, it should be relatively easy for you to create an excellent client service by using some common sense. It only takes small steps and little touches to make a difference (as my previous client service story indicates). As Gerry Riskin says, it's the 'slight edge' theory - you only have to be marginally better than the competition to have the edge (stay tuned for a post later this week with more advice from Gerry Riskin from the Get a Life conference).

Given the abysmal client service that's the norm, how hard would it be to gain the edge in client service?

Want to learn more about client service? Take a look at this post about value and client service, as well as this one about caring for your clients.

Don't fall victim to 'random acts of marketing'

Last week, I promised to post some more about the Total Practice Management Association's "Get a Life (TM)" Conference, and some of the specific tips I picked up as I was "live-tweeting" the conference.

First up is Ross Fishman, who was not only an entertaining speaker, but was of the presenters who used his PowerPoint presentation most effectively. He started off his lecture talking about law firm websites and contrasting two different firm websites  - actually a 'before' and 'after' of one of his clients (although he didn't reveal that until later).

Fishman emphasized the importance of developing relationships over time and becoming a niche expert. He also distinguished between 'marketing' and 'sales,' saying that the purpose of your marketing activities is to provide you with sales opportunities. In other words, you use various marketing to get a prospect to contact you or to set up an appointment (the sales opportunity). The sales opportunity is when how you get the business.

The sales and marketing distinction is an important one, because many lawyers make the mistake of trying to 'sell' prospects all of the time, rather than using marketing as an interim step to create an opportunity to have the sales conversation. Often, even lawyers with good intentions who would be a good fit for the client and who have the ability to effectively solve a client's problems turn off the client by trying to 'sell' the client at the time of the first contact.

Your marketing materials - including your website - create an impression of your firm. Fishman suggests reviewing your materials from a new perspective. As you look at your materials, ask yourself: What opinions do you form looking at your materials? What do your clients want? What will those clients respond to? Do your materials reflect what your clients want and respond to?

Although your marketing materials must respond to your prospect's wants and needs, they must also be a genuine reflection of you and your firm. If you misrepresent who you are, your efforts will ultimately fall flat. Do your marketing materials reflect who you are and your firm's culture/personality?

Fishman cautions lawyers against making these common mistakes:

Engaging in "Hummingbird selling" - the lawyer meets someone, goes to lunch, talks all about themselves and their firm the whole time and then hits the person up for business. Instead, remember that you must LISTEN to others first, to learn about them, and take the time to establish a relationship before asking for business. RELATIONSHIPS develop SLOWLY - it is a long term process which requires between 7 and 20 face to face contacts. The "Random acts of lunch" approach is not efficient.

Failing to build a robust contact list. According to Fishman, "non-rainmakers" have 10-15 people on their contact lists, while "rainmakers" have HUNDREDS

Marketing too broadly. The way to build your practice is by positioning yourself as THE expert in your area in the mind of the prospect. The way to accomplish this is to market narrowly by creating a niche. You can practice in more than one niche area, but you must focus your marketing on a small segment of the population. Just as large companies such as Proctor & Gamble have several different brands, such as Tide, Dove, Crest and Pampers for different purpose, you want to create 'brands' that you can market to a small segment of the population, and then target those people by getting involved in their trade associations or groups. To be effective, Fishman says you must: 

• Be active

• Be visible

• Be a leader

Some of Fishman's 'quotables' included:

• Most people's networking is like throwing business cards out the back window. It may work, but it's not likely
• Your goal should be market leadership/market dominance
• The basic issue in marekting is creating a category you can be first in
• Everything in marketing flows from the message - do you have a unique message?
• Focus your marketing - you can practice broadly, but market narrowly

Need help developing a niche or a marketing strategy that's narrowly focused? Feel free to contact me to see how I can help.

It's more important than ever for lawyers to "Get a Life"

As many of you already know, I was in Chicago last week for the first annual Total Practice Management Association "Get a Life" (TM) conference. This month's Lawyer Meltdown Newsletter included a recap of some tips from the conference speakers, and I'll be posting more of them on the blog in the next week or so.

The purpose of the conference, as well as the Total Practice Management Association's new magazine, Total Balance, (which you can get for free) was to teach lawyers ways to achieve greater work/life balance. If you look at the roster of speakers and programs from the event and the conference recap, you'll realize that work/life balance doesn't mean not working hard or not taking the business of law seriously - in fact, it's just the opposite.

I firmly believe that in order to be intellectually challenged, to come to work with your best foot forward and to provide your clients with the excellent service they deserve, you've got to have balance in your life.

But work/life balance doesn't just have one meaning that's universal to everyone. For some, it can be working long hours doing something they're passionate about. For others, balance comes by defining your priorities and focusing on what you love and what you do best, outsourcing the rest. For others, balance is achieved through flexible work schedules, and technological advances. Still others achieve balance by focusing their marketing and their practice only on the highest value clients. And of course, work/life balance also means determining your personal priorities and incorporating those into your life - whether through your practice or outside of your practice.

Yesterday, I came across an article in Law.com entitled, "Are Today's Lawyers Stretched Too Far?" by Susan Beck of The American Lawyer. The article begins by talking about tough times faced by big law firms, and the depression and even suicides that have resulted from recent layoffs and firm restructuring. Beck notes that the current law firm model is not sustainable, either financially or practically. She says, "Expecting lawyers to devote every ounce of their energy to their firm and its clients is not sustainable."

So what is the alternative? I've heard some lawyers from large firms commenting that one 'bright spot' in the economic downturn is that the lawyers who still have jobs won't be 'whining about work/life balance any more; they'll just be glad to be working.' I couldn't disagree more.

Work/life balance is even more important now, when financial pressures are mounting, client expectations are increasing, budgets are being scrutinized, and some workloads have increased due to under-staffing. And again - clients are better served by lawyers who are committed and focused, which necessarily means that those lawyers are taking care of themselves, too.

Beck suggests that it's time to, "knock [lawyers] out of the daily grind, to get [them]to stop, look around and think." Hopefully, focus on these issues - including conferences like "Get a Life" will help lawyers to do that. 

If you'd like to see the conference recap from my newsletter, you can get it here. While you're there, subscribe to the newsletter - next month's issue will include some lessons learned from all of the conferences I've attended over the past year.

Need help defining your priorities or structuring your firm for better balance? Contact me to see how I can help.