2012 Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide Arrives

Right on schedule, the 2012 Solo and Small Firm Legal Technology Guide: Critical Decisions Made Simple, by Sharon Nelson, John Simek and Michael Maschke, is here.

This annual guide is the only one of its kind written to help solo and small firm lawyers find the best legal technology for their dollar. You’ll find the most current information and recommendations on computers, servers, networking equipment, legal software, printers, security products, smartphones, and anything else a law office might need. It’s written in plain language to make implementation easier if you choose to do it yourself – or you can use it in conjunction with your IT consultant. Either way, you’ll learn how to make technology work for you.

Topics include a complete and unbiased overview of current legal technology products; step-by-step instructions for making sound technology decisions; how to choose the right operating system and software or your office, including case management applications, billing systems, and document management solutions; determining what you need to go wireless; and how to protect your firm from security threats – including viruses, spyware, and spam.

Whether you’re seeking to replace existing desktops or laptops, improve the functioning and security of your existing wired network or add a wireless one, improve your workflow with automation such as voice recognition software or bring order from chaos with new practice management or time and billing software, this book is the place to begin your search for solutions.

ASB members can check the book out from the PMAP Library by contacting Kristi Skipper or purchase a discounted copy through the ABA webstore.

Not Bad, For Government Work!

With legal jobs for new law school graduates harder and harder to come by, an often- overlooked source of legal jobs is the federal government. Both new and seasoned lawyers often do not seek out employment with the federal government because they either don’t know the jobs exist or don’t feel like they can penetrate the system to learn what jobs are available and how to go about applying for them. That excuse is no longer valid with the publication of Landing a Federal Legal Job: Finding Success in the U.S. Government Job Market by Richard L. Hermann.

After giving a brief overview of the current number of federal legal jobs (around 40,000, with about 25% of those in the U.S. Department of Justice) the book goes on to outline the pros and cons of federal legal employment; explains where the jobs are, both in structural and geographical terms; and then explains in depth the hiring process, with a chapter devoted specifically to new law school graduates. The book also has sections devoted to frequently asked questions about landing a federal legal job; how to go about getting hired; and a final section outlining where to work, including information on “hidden” positions and the “best” federal legal jobs, including factors such as areas with a great future.

If you’re looking for a legal job or have one but think you might be ready for a change, Landing a Federal Legal Job is your roadmap to a new future. Contact Kristi Skipper at the Practice Management Assistance Program if you’d like to check this book out, or you may purchase your own copy through the ASB’s discount program with the ABA webstore.

Draft Now, Send Later

Often, lawyers will put off drafting an email because they don’t have all the information needed to complete and send it. What they forget, or never knew to begin with, is that send or delete are not the only options with an incomplete email.

Get started on drafting in Outlook whenever the inspiration strikes you. Then, just click the X in the upper right hand corner to close the email, and Outlook will ask you if you’d like to save the draft. Click Yes, and your partially completed email will be filed in the Drafts folder, waiting on you to come back to finish and send it whenever you’re ready. This is a quick and easy way to capture ideas or information while you have them in mind, and then store them until you’re ready to complete the process. When you are, just go to the Drafts folder, click on the email message, complete it and hit Send.

An added advantage of doing this is that you can store your messages until the end of the day, holding them for revision as more information comes in and putting off having to deal with the response until the next day, when appropriate. If you long for the time when once-daily mail delivery provided more structure and a slower pace to your work day, making non-critical email work more like snail mail is one way to return to yesteryear.

In addition to holding all your drafts and sending them at one time, you can set a specific send time after which individual messages will be delivered. In the message, click Options. Under the Delivery options, select the “Do not deliver before” check box and then click the delivery date and time you want.

If you use Microsoft Exchange Server, you can also delay all your messages for a specified time after you hit Send by setting up a rule. If you are always forgetting to attach the document mentioned in the email, this is a life saver. Type “delay delivery of all messages” into the help search field for full directions on how to set up the rule.

And, until you get used to this new process, it’s a good idea to set a calendar reminder to check your drafts folder each morning before moving on to other work.

$ave More with New Member Benefit Discounts

The Board of Bar Commissioners recently approved four new member benefit programs offering ASB members discounts on several services that will help you – and help you save and make money – in the practice of law.

Verizon Wireless

ASB members with Verizon Wireless calling plans of $34.99 or higher may qualify for discounts of up to 22% on law firm/corporate monthly access fees, 18% on employee/family lines tied to the firm/corporate line, $20 unlimited Wireless Email Feature, and additional discounts on equipment. Existing customers do not have to extend their contract to receive these discounts. As always, some restrictions apply, so click here for full details on how to sign up for this benefit for your firm, your employees and your family.

The ASB has entered a partnership with National Purchasing Partners (NPP) to make this benefit available, and we will be adding additional discounted offerings from NPP soon.

Ruby® Receptionists Virtual Receptionist Service

Ruby® Receptionists provides expert virtual receptionist services to more than 1,000 small businesses, legal practices, and professionals across North America. Unlike conventional answering services, Ruby Receptionists interact with you and your callers as if they were your employees, putting through the calls you are waiting for and handling the rest. ASB members receive free set up, an 8% discount on monthly charges, and waived fees on additional mailboxes.

For more information e-mail hello@callruby.com, or call 1-866-611-7829. Or sign up online now.

Two Cloud-Based Practice Management Software Options

Law firms can now choose from an emerging group of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers for legal practice management (LPM) and time and billing applications. With traditional client-server LPM systems, firms pay up-front costs and maintenance fees over the years. With the SaaS model, firms pay little or no initial overhead; instead, firms are charged monthly fees. SaaS is a great tool to help solo practitioners and small firms level the playing field.

Rocket Matter is an online legal practice management and time and billing application for small to mid-sized law firms. Rocket Matter makes it seamless to bill time while you go about your usual activities. Rocket Matter provides calendaring, conflict of interest checking, contact management, task tracking, phone messaging, and a host of financial management and reporting tools. ASB members who sign up for an initial one year of Rocket Matter service will receive a 17% discount, making Rocket Matter $49.80 per month for the first user and $41.50 per month for the next 5 users. Learn more about how Rocket Matter can help you better manage your practice or sign up here.

Clio is a practice management system which is specifically designed for solo practitioners and small firms. Clio’s dashboard provides a centralized view of your upcoming tasks and schedule, and it’s matter-centric workflow allows you to easily link tasks to matters. You can bill time directly from tasks as you perform them. Alabama State Bar members are eligible for a 10% discount (no contract is necessary) on Clio, making it’s practice management system available for $44 per month per attorney and $22 per month per support staff person. Learn more about how Clio can help you better manage your practice or sign up here.

Both Rocket Matter and Clio are 100% web-based, providing access to your secure, encrypted data from most Windows, Mac, Palm, Android or BlackBerry devices, and both offer 30 day free trials, so you can’t afford not to try them out!

ISI Personal Umbrella Insurance

A personal umbrella policy is among the best values in insurance today. For as little as $290 a year you can purchase $1 million of additional coverage that provides protection for you, personally, in excess of the limits provided in the required underlying auto & home policies. Some highlights of this plan include defense costs; a broader definition of who is an insured; domestic partner coverage; automatic coverage for 30 days on a drop-down basis for non-owned autos, watercraft & recreational vehicles; youthful driver and secondary residence coverage; coverage when you serve as a director of officer of a non-profit organization; higher cut-offs for automatic coverage for home-based businesses; and $1 million of uninsured/underinsured motorists coverage standard in every policy. As with all insurance policies, some restrictions may apply.

Contact ISI today to get started.

New Member Benefits Web Page Launched!

Alabama State Bar members have access to Casemaker free legal research, valuable educational programs and select discounts on products and services to benefit both your practice and work-life balance, as well as invaluable resources and information to enhance your professional success. As your partner in the profession, the Alabama State Bar encourages you to take advantage of these benefits. To help you do that, we’ve recently re-designed your Member Benefits web page to make the many offerings easier to access. Take a look today!

Policy & Procedure Manuals Make Training Easy

Large firms often have in house training programs to bring new employees up to speed on how the firm does things. Solos and small firms, on the other hand, seldom do, and training costs and the learning curve for a new employee can be a substantial expense for the small firm.

Be prepared to bring a new employee up to speed quickly or deal with an unexpected or lengthy employee absence by developing quick-reference guides for how the various jobs within your firm are done. These can be as simple as one or two page “cheat sheets” which outline individual tasks, or full blown manuals covering all aspects of firm procedure. Don’t try to create these from whole cloth overnight unless you have a lot of free time. Instead, start by having each current employee outline the tasks which they perform on a regular basis and then fill in the details.

New employees can’t remember everything they’re told on the first day of a new job, and even existing employees may have difficulty performing tasks consistently if they are done infrequently. These “cheat sheets” will save you a lot of time (and we all know time is money) because you won’t have to cover the same ground over and over, and will prevent mistakes because a new employee will not have to choose between disturbing you or plunging ahead blindly and hoping for the best.

If you don’t already have job descriptions for each of your employees, these sheets can also be used to create job descriptions for each position within your firm and to evaluate whether work is evenly divided or determine whether there are overlaps or gaps in responsibility. If you do have job descriptions, compare the cheat sheets to them to determine whether the employee is doing what he or she was originally hired to do. If not, you will be in a position to discover whether the job description or the work actually being done should be changed.

The PMAP Library offers two great sample policy and procedures guides: Law Office Procedures Manual for Solos & Small Firms by Demetrios Dimitriou and Law Office Policy & Procedures Manual, Sixth Edition, by Robert C. Wert and Howard L. Hatoff. Both come on disc, and both are available for checkout.  Or you can purchase your own copy of either from the ABA through the bar’s website at a 15% discount.

ASB Job/Source Goes Live

The ASB has just launched the ASB Job/Source, a retooled version of the online classified ad section of the website, to cater more to job seekers and those looking for staff, including support staff.  This was an initiative of immediate past president Alyce Spruell of Tuscaloosa.

While we just launched it this week and do not yet have many job postings, we hope that in the future it will be a good place for both lawyers seeking employees and lawyers and support staff seeking positions to search.   The site also has categories for contract work, those seeking or offering office space to share, goods or services offered or wanted, and items for sale or free to a good home, such as used reporters or other law books.

A 50 word ad costs only $50 and runs for 60 days online, and the package includes a print ad in next issue of The Alabama Lawyer.  Please pass the word and check the Job/Source the next time you’re looking to hire someone for your office.

Stepping It Up

The beginning of the year is a great time to bring a new focus and intensity to building your practice, and one of the best ways to generate more and better work is to concentrate on improving your referral sources.

If you’re unhappy with the referrals you’re receiving from other lawyers as well as your options for referring clients with problems in areas of the law that you don’t handle, my most recent SimpleSteps column in the January/February issue of Law Practice magazine has suggestions for some easy things you can do to improve your referral network.  If you don’t have time for the entire article, here are the high points:

Decide What You Want

Think critically about the type of practice you have now, what unmet legal needs exist in your community and what you might be able to do to meet those needs. Set a limit on the number of practice areas your practice will cover. Then, establish written criteria for the cases that you will take. This will help you to easily spot cases that don’t fit within your plan and help you to stay firm in your resolve to stick with that plan. Knowing exactly what you are looking for will make the case review and intake process easier, and will also help you to streamline and automate the way you handle these new cases once you sign them up, allowing you to build practice efficiencies.

Tell Other People Who Can Help You

Once you’ve decided what types of new business you’re looking to attract, network with others to seek their help. Your friends and colleagues can’t send you referrals if they don’t know that you want them or don’t know what type of referrals you’d like to receive.

Think strategically about who you know that might be in contact with your target clients—especially those lawyers you might be able to repay by making referrals in turn—and arrange to spend time with them in a comfortable setting. Educate these potential referral sources about the type of practice you’re trying to build and how they can help, and brainstorm about how you might be able to help each other. You may often be surprised to find that your fellow lawyers, who don’t practice the same type of law you do, often have no idea where to send clients that they can’t help. Seek out other solos and small firms with different practice niches until you’ve created a network that enables you to be more of a full service legal provider. 

Say “Thank You”

Here in the South, the handwritten thank-you note, while maybe not as common as the common sparrow, is hardly an endangered species. If someone does something nice for you, the right thing is to let them know that you appreciated it—especially if you’d like for them to keep doing it! Whatever the custom in your area, take it to the next level and let those who refer good cases to you know just how thankful you are for their thoughtfulness. Expressing your true appreciation helps build personal relationships and encourages the objects of your gratitude to continue to do nice things for you. We all should have learned this as children, but in the rush of the modern law practice we sometimes forget.

Ask How You Did

Finally, you need to keep up with where your clients come from. This will let you know who your good business sources are, facilitating your ability to thank them, and also helping you regularly follow up on all referred cases. Monitoring feedback from your referral sources is the best way to make sure referrals keep coming.

Few of us like to be judged – especially negatively, but it’s important to contact your referral sources from time to time to make sure they are happy with the way referrals are being handled. Referral sources will seldom risk mutual embarrassment in order to tell you something you need to know: that they were dissatisfied with the way you handled a referred matter.

When contacting your referral sources, ask specifically whether the referred client reported being happy with the referral, and whether the referring lawyer was happy with the length of time it took you to see the client, the fee charged and the frequency with which you reported on the status of the case. Take any criticism you receive with good grace, and offer ways to improve the situation. If you can build confidence in your referral sources that your goal is to continuously improve the way you handle the cases they send your way, you will be the first lawyer they will think of when the time comes to refer a client.  And that’s the real goal, after all.

Happy New Year! Happy (?) New Laws!

Hopefully, if you’re reading this at all today you’re doing so from the warmth and comfort of your home.  No one should be at the office on Sunday, particularly when it’s New Years Day.  Nevertheless, January 1, 2012, is a significant day, legally, as several new laws passed in the 2011 regular legislative session become effective today.  So, if you’ve enjoyed the requisite black-eyed peas and ham hocks that will ensure good luck during the New Year, it’s time to start your legal year off right, too, with a just a taste of these new laws.

One is the Alabama Uniform Power of Attorney Act (SB 53, Act 2011-683).  This act makes some significant changes in powers of attorney created on or after today.  Prior to its enactment, powers of attorney in Alabama automatically terminated if the person granting the power became incapacitated, unless the power specifically stated that it was a durable power which continued after incapacity.  Under the new law, a power of attorney is now presumed to be durable unless it states that it is not.

Another, the Alabama Revised Notary Act (SB 54, Act 2011-295) makes several changes to update the laws relating to notaries public.  It eliminates the requirement for an embossed seal, provides for statewide commissions for all notaries as new commissions are issued or old ones renewed, removes the statutory requirement for notaries to keep a journal and file it in probate court (who knew?), and increases the bond a notary must post from $10,000 to $25,000.

Also taking effect today is the Alabama Unsworn Foreign Declarations Act (HB 20, Act 2011-533), which affirms the validity of a document signed in a foreign country if the document states that it is signed under penalty of perjury.

And we bring up the rear with the enactment of the Alabama Uniform Rule Against Perpetuities Act (HB 28, Act 2011-532).  Alabama was the last of the 50 states to have the original common law Rule Against Perpetuities (remember that from law school?) in force.  This new statute seeks to prevent the harsh result of transfers which were declared void due to even a hypothetical violation of the rule and transfers to all of a class of persons declared void because the potential that the transfer might vest outside the permissible period as to a single member of the class.

If this little taste of new laws has left you hungering for more information on the changes each makes, see Bob McCurley’s Legislative Wrap-up in the November 2011 issue of The Alabama Lawyer for more details.

Happy New Year, and I wish you all well in the practice of law in 2012!

It’s Alive! The Last Word Rises from the Grave!

Do you feel like you work hard every day yet don’t accomplish the things that really need to be done? I’m hardly one to pontificate on this topic as I haven’t posted to this blog since October! But, zombies have been all the rage this year, and since 2012 is almost here and it’s the right time of year to make resolutions, I’m going to resolve to try to post at least once a week during the upcoming year.  The Last Word may actually rise from the grave and walk the earth again.

I can’t think of any better place to begin than with procrastination, so here’s a short piece on the topic that David Bilinsky and I prepared for slaw Tips (where I usually manage to turn in my work on time) earlier this month. It doesn’t count as a completely original post to get started again but, as you’ll read below, doing anything is better than just sitting around and thinking about it!

Kick Procrastination to the Curb!

Many lawyers deal daily with a subtle form of procrastination – working on “busywork” to avoid the important but intimidating jobs that they should be working on. This behavior creates a vicious cycle that causes stress which, often, leads to additional procrastination which, in turn, leads to – you guessed it! – more procrastination.

Meg Spencer Dixon of Spencer Consulting has written perceptively about lawyer procrastination and what you can do to stop putting off the important jobs in Overcoming Procrastination: How to Get Things Done Despite Yourself.

Here’s our take on her nine techniques, which are described more fully in her article. Put one or two of them to work today, and start to see results that will, in turn, encourage a virtuous cycle of getting the important jobs done – on time or even early!

1. Don’t try to do it all at once. Segment a large elephant of a job into small, discreet tasks and then set aside fifteen or twenty minutes each day to tackle one or two.

2. Start anywhere. When you segment a large job, it’s not so important which task is done first, freeing you up to get started on whatever is most appealing.

3. Start imperfectly. Many lawyers are perfectionists. Give yourself permission to work on a “rough draft” of projects or tasks, secure in the knowledge that if you just get started you’ll have plenty of time to perfect the project before it’s due date.

4. Drive yourself crazy by doing nothing. This technique involves getting together the materials needed for starting a project and then forcing yourself to just sit and look at them for exactly seven minutes (by a clock or timer) before doing anything. By the time the seven minutes are over ideas will be flowing and you’ll be itching to get started.

5. Work no more than fifteen minutes at a time. Also known as the “Pomodoro technique” – named for a little tomato-shaped timer – the idea here is to build momentum by giving yourself permission at the end of the fifteen minute period to take a break or immediately plunge in for an additional fifteen minutes.

6. Start, even if you’re not in the mood. Habits are extremely hard to break. Develop a good habit of starting on something important as soon as you sit down rather than a bad habit of seeking a time filler or two to kill some time first.

7. Realize that unpleasant tasks don’t get any easier over time. Delaying the unpleasant makes it no less unpleasant – it just adds a secondary layer of stress. Don’t ease into the cold water – just plunge right in!
8. Schedule a “catch-up” day. Plan one day a week or month and do nothing but annoying small tasks that you tend to let slide. You’ll dread the day, but not the way you feel when it’s over.

9. Honor your leisure time. When you stand firm on the time that you’ve scheduled for things that you really want to do, you benefit in two ways. First, it relieves the stress that constant work and worry build up. Second, it helps you to make the most of your work time so that you can meet the deadlines that will allow you to claim your reward!

Give Your Clients a Roadmap

Yesterday I spoke at lunch to the Solo & Small Firm Section of the Birmingham Bar Association, so I thought today I’d share one of the practice management tips I gave them yesterday.

If they don’t already have one, most people report that they turn first to recommendations from friends and relatives when seeking a lawyer. So it makes sense that you’d like to keep your existing clients happy so that they’ll recommend you to other people. But how do you go about it?

As we become more and more familiar with the areas of the law in which we concentrate, we sometimes tend to forget that a divorce or personal injury case may be completely uncharted, and usually very scary, territory for our client. So, at the beginning of every case, give your clients a road map. You can really help your clients to feel that they’ve made the right choice of lawyers when you do this.

All you have to do is develop a written chronology or frequently asked question sheet for the particular type of matter, to guide your clients through the process. Not only will these help you create a sense of security for the client and convey some tangible value received for the fee paid, but they’ll also help prevent unnecessary phone calls that waste your time and your client’s money.

The same is true of mapping out what the client can expect in dealing with you. If you incorporate this type of information into your fee agreement, you will provide tangible value at the first meeting while starting to also shape client expectations about the procedures your office uses to facilitate lawyer-client communications and handle emergencies, and what you expect in terms of billing and payment.