Practice Matters

Be a Rural Lawyer, Success Guaranteed – only 49.99 + s/h Special TV Offer Only

/ Bruce Cameron

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm – Sir 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. Continue reading →

Those Indispensable Devices

/ Bruce Cameron / 4 Comments

Don't Laugh, Lawyers Still Use These

At a resent CLE, a newly fledged solo (she being in the process of outfitting her office) seeing that I was taking notes on a Mac, asked me about the software and hardware I used in my practice and what I thought were “must-haves”. So, here is my short list of “indispensables”

  • My Snapscan 1500. Every original document that comes into the office relating to a client matter gets scanned and the original is sent to the client. This way, the client can track the progress of their matter and I don’t have to invest in file cabinets.
  • Crashplan. You’ve got to have backup software and Crashplan allows me to back up to locally attached media as well as to a private cloud. I get the advantage of having local media for quick restores and the redundancy of off-site storage. The fact that I can use my own private cloud means that I keep my data under my control
  • Daylite & Billings. Daylite is a business productivity manager – that happens to work well as law practice management software and Billings tracks time & expenses and generates invoices. The programs share data with each other and the real strength of these programs lies not in the vast array of things you can do with them, but in the fact that you can be productive with them right out of the box.
  • My Mac’s (a desktop & a laptop). Sure, you have to buy into Apple’s walled garden approach to hardware and software, but that’s not an entirely bad thing – I’m looking for stability and consistency in my business hardware and I really don’t care if I can tweak a few more cycles out of the CPU or if I can install the latest beta version of a piece of software. I do care that I spend little to no time on IT issues – initial setup, from unpacking the boxes to having the system up and running with all software installed, took less than 90 minutes and I’ve not spent more than 30 minutes in any one month since on computer issues. These little buggers work.
  • A typewriter. Now this one is a little practice area specific, but if you have any dealings with residential real estate in MN, then sooner or later you are going to run into a need to complete a certificate of real estate value (CRV). This is a 3 part form that has no electronic equivalent – it has to be physically filed and must be either hand- or type-written. Since my handwriting is so abysmal, were I to complete a CRV by hand it would look more like a prescription than a legal document – so a typewriter is de rigueur.

Rural Marketing – Its The Message

/ Bruce Cameron

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say that there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. Frank Zappa

This post is off-schedule in part to that particular brand of “what were you thinking when…” stupidity that keeps lawyers employed and in part to the sheer genius of the purveyors of commercial advertising space that leaves in its wake a feeling of  absolute wonderment that any organization could survive the disconnect between the people selling the service and the people serving existing accounts.

Now, I am not a marketing wunderkind – frankly my entire theory of marketing is that one should address potential clients as if they have a functioning brain and tell them “what’s in it for them” in as few words as possible. Hopefully this can be accomplished before their eyes glaze over or they run screaming from the room – my marketing theory has yet to incorporate bondage, but I do hear that it is popular in some circles. However, the idea that one’s customers might possibly be thinking creatures seems to be out of favor this week in some sales circles. Continue reading →

Good Help

/ Bruce Cameron / 2 Comments

It is spring and the latest crop of Paralegals and Legal Assistants is close to matriculating from the local business college and my firm is on their radar. I know this because of the stream of blind resumes from plucky new graduates seeking employment with my firm. It is truly odd feeling to be on the receiving end of that stream and write those short notes that say “thanks, but no thanks” in a few brief polite words.

Some of those letters are easier to write than others; it is fairly easy to say no to the Legal Assistant who can’t spell my name correctly or the Paralegal who e-mailed me his résumé in a format that I couldn’t open. I did give extra points for initiative to the applicant who dropped into my office unannounced with cover letter, resume, and references in hand wanting just a few moments of my time – too bad she lost so many points in the consideration category.

The hard letters to write are to those applications who are good candidates, the ones who have taken the effort to research what it is that I do and have crafted their cover letters and resumes to show me how what they have to offer fits with my practice. These are good studious kids entering a tough job market. I wish them the best of luck.

Leaving Baby Behind

/ Bruce Cameron / 1 Comment

When it comes to commercial airline travel, I’d just as soon fly myself, but a business trip with strict time requirements in the middle of winter is not conducive to travel by light aircraft – so I find myself at an airport waiting to be crammed into a large aluminum tube that will, hopefully, transport me across the country with all the comfort of your average city bus. What makes this trip unique is that this is the first trip where I’m leaving my practice behind.

This trip was scheduled several months ago, so preparations have been fairly relaxed and the advanced notice made it possible to schedule around the few week days I will be away. My answering service has been briefed on how to manage client calls, there are no deadlines to be concerned with and I have every confidence that things will go smoothly. The problem is, I’m leaving my practice behind – this is not a day trip up to the city for a CLE or a few days off to catch up on farm chores; this is being a 1000 miles away with no easy way back – totally reliant on that thin digital umbilical cord of cell phone and internet to sustain operations.

Sure, I have a back-up attorney in case the unexpected would happen and I have every confidence that should an emergency arise he would be able to handle it; but we’re in new parent territory here – this is the first trip away from baby. I know the sitter is fully qualified, that all the emergency contact information is pinned to the refrigerator and that all will be well. Unfortunately, knowing and feeling are two different things and right now, the later is running roughshod over the former.

I had thought that it would be the stress of missing work, of losing revenue that would be the hardest part of traveling – after all being way over there means that I’m missing potential income right here. But no, I’m sitting here stressing over simple separation anxiety.