Practice Management


The holiday lull and the unseasonable winter weather can to a rather abrupt, simultaneous halt this week – seems that it takes real winter weather (snow, high temps eking their way into the teens, a northerly breezes) to make folks start to make good on those new year’s resolutions that this will be the year “I’ll see a lawyer about…” – putting an end to my brief sabbatical.

As a solo, any downtime is a mixed blessing. It’s great to have some time to catch up on all those little inconsequential chores that get put aside (things like dusting the office, rediscovering the top of your desk, or getting a jump-start on your tax returns), but the downside is that unscheduled downtime means that the ol’ marketing machinery ain’t working at capacity. So, I spent my brief break asking myself “WWCD?” (what would Carolyn do), re-reading my brand spanking new copy of Solo by Choice (my first version was reduced to a somewhat collated stack of highlighted, ink-smeared and tea-stained pages during the start-up phase of my practice – the inevitable death of all really useful books), and re-evaluating/revising my marketing plan.

So, I come back from my sabbatical with my “quiet mentor” a little chided (it is humbling to see yourself when the text describes common mistakes) and greatly invigorated – sometimes a little affirmation that, at its core, marketing is not all that difficult and that anyone can be a better marketer goes a long way. Thanks Carolyn.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasmSir Winston Churchill

There are fifteen steps that, if followed precisely and in the correct order, will guarantee your small town law practice will be a successful, profitable enterprise. Unfortunately, the last person who knew what these steps is also the only person on record to have found a way to successfully transmute lead into gold. So, rural entrepreneur, you will have to be satisfied with these few suggestions to ease your way between failures.

Get paid up front

I cannot claim credit for this – this is, after all, Foonberg Rule #1. Discussing fees and collecting a retainer is the first of many difficult conversations you will have with clients, but it is something that must be done and is necessary if your practice is to thrive. It is far easier to get paid up front than it is to try to collect when all is said and done. If you aren’t collecting fees, you are doing pro-bono work and that is simply an expensive way to fail slowly. Develop a reputation for providing quality service at a reasonable price and most rural clients are not going to quibble about the price; but they also aren’t going to volunteer to pay it either – you’ve got to ask.

Give it everything you’ve got

This is more than just a reminder about working hard, in a small town there is little distinction between the profession and the professional – what you do is part and parcel of who you – so accept that you are going to be a lawyer 24/7/365 regardless of what your office hours are. Until you are established as a community fixture, you and your business are going to be evaluated, weighted and measured. You are going to be always building your reputation, so give this endeavor everything you’ve got and use every skill you have. After you are established as a community fixture – you’ll still be a lawyer 24/7, you and your practice will still be evaluated, weighted and measured, and you still have to maintain your reputation, but at least now folks will have funny stories about the day you… to tease you with – this is a good sign, it means you’ve been accepted. (more…)

This weekend there was an accident in our community. It was one of those events where we learn yet again that there is a fine line between urgency and carelessness and where we are shown that the human body is no match for horsepower, physics and heavy machinery. It was also one of those events that brings a rural community together – when the calls of concern and the offers of help arrive on the heels of the emergency vehicles. Neighbors, friends and strangers band together to see that the crops are brought in, the chores are done and the injured are cared for. And it was one of those events where one senses a wave of palpable relief sweep through the community when the word comes through that, this time, there were no life threatening injuries, no serious trauma and the only injuries are those cured by time and rest.

Now that the moment has past, I am left contemplating my fragility, the wholly unpleasant thought of emergency planning for my practice, and asking if my ICE file (in case of emergency) will be adequate for the occasion of my injury. The very nature of being a solo means that, unless prior plans are made, no one will be there to care for my clients. So, I am spending some time reviewing plans made and thinking about what new plans need to be made.

(more…)

Emmerson observed that “nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same”. The same observation can be made about web-based practice management systems.  In her latest screencast, Nicole Black does an excellent job in reviewing the mutable world of web-based practice management systems. She does an excellent job of comparing and contrasting the features of the 3 major players in the web-based LPM world (Clio, LawRD & Rocket Matter) with on-screen demonstrations of each of the systems. If you are thinking of investing in a web-based LPM service, Ms. Black’s screencast is a must see.

While Ms. Black does provide some general words of warning about the ethical traps and general risks involved with using web-based systems (in fact, I applaud her insistance that one checks out the service’s data backup and recovery systems before investing), I would have liked more in-depth information on these subjects. (more…)

It is estimated that data loss costs U.S. businesses average $12-418 billion per year and, on average, each hour of downtime costs $50,000. The average cost to re-enter 20 megabytes of data is between $17,000 and $19,000 and takes between 19 and 21 days[i]. The cost to recreate data from scratch is estimated to be between $2000 and $8000 per megabyte[ii]. A data loss event can be catastrophic occurrence; 60% of companies that lose their data close within 6 months of the event and 72% fail within 24 months[iii].

The leading causes of data loss are: hardware or system malfunctions (40-44%), human error (29-32%), software corruption (13-14%), computer viruses (6-7%), theft or data breach (9%), hardware destruction or natural disasters (3%)[iv]. The leading causes of data theft are: attacks from external sources (73%), theft by business partners (39%), and attacks from internal sources (18%)[v]. It estimated that: 1 in 5 computers will suffer a fatal hard drive crash within its lifespan, 15% of laptops are stolen or lost (approximately 2000 per day), and, on average, a hard drive fails every 15 seconds[vi]. (more…)

Next Page »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 296 other followers