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Management Articles
2008
Effective Law Firm Administration Depends Upon Connecting With Others
No single leadership interaction style works for all people in all situations, but by understanding different styles and methods of interacting, you can communicate more effectively with your team. Learn how understanding others will improve your work environment.
Management Tips and Tricks
Under Water from Overhead? Here Are Ways to Keep Afloat
Don’t let your firm drown in overhead expenses. Ed Poll explains different types of overhead and how understanding your firms needs and limitations can help you make the best choices during these difficult economic times.
Small Talk Makes A Big Impression: How To Use Casual Conversation To Build Your Career
We all know the value of effective communication, but that is often easier said than done. This insightful article first looks at how society has facilitated ineffective communicators and then provides a scholarly solution.
How Better Communication Can Help You Avoid A Malpractice Claim
As client relationships grow, new communication skills must be learned to ensure their satisfaction. Here are practices you should follow to ensure fewer malpractice claims and increased efforts to mend even broken relationships over unfortunate glitches in our cases that are bound to happen as our practices grow in number and complexity.
Management Tips and Tricks
Don’t Fear Stormy Weather – Any Lawyer Can Be a Rainmaker
While lawyers may believe they are not marketing oriented or skilled, everyone has the capability to “make rain” in some fashion – that is, to do the marketing and business development necessary to identify new clients and generate new business. Ed Poll describes the qualities you can develop, to contribute to your firm as a “rainmaker.”
Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO): 2007 and Beyond
As clients look for inexpensive basic legal processes, more firms are turning to Legal Process Outsourcing. In this article, Mark Ross, Ron Friedman and Neeraja Kandala discuss trends in and the future of offshore outsourcing.
An Accountant’s View: Financial Trends that Affect Law Firms
With the approach of tax season, law firm administrators are eager to understand how the latest developments will affect their firms as financial deadlines draw near. These developments can be structural, like choice of entity, or strategic, like the use of key performance indicators. Either way, they are essential to a law firm’s bottom line.
Management Tips and Tricks
Avoiding Discrimination in the Law Firm
How can you be sure your firm is not discriminating? Below are some common trends to look out for so you can avoid a messy suit.
Crisis Communication: How to Manage Them Effectively
What will your firm do in the face of an unexpected emergency? Crisis communication plans provide an organizational framework of who will be responsible for which specific task, when and if a crisis should occur.
2007
Bridging The Great Divide: Improved Communication Equals Increased Productivity
Non-verbal communication constitutes 93% of what we communicate. Master your tone, body language and listening skills to become a great communicator.
Management by Agreement
Managing Relationships: Building Effective Collaborations without a Silver Bullet
Recently, I gave a tutorial on effective communication at Harvard Law School. Here's the outline, including references.
Management Tips and Tricks
Whom Do You Trust? Beware of Gray Areas Regarding Trust Accounts
An engagement agreement isn't as black and white as you may think. In fact, there are a lot of gray areas regarding client trust accounts.
Coaches Teach What Law Schools Don't
In school you have professors; in the real world, you have coaches. Achieve success with the help of a coach, who can show you how to apply proven lessons rather than academic theories.
Asking the Right Questions
A typical interview process commonly lacks accurate presentation of both the interviewee and interviewer. To find a suitable match, look to these basic questions that may yield a more accurate portrayal of both parties.
Management by Agreement
The Law of Agreement
The omnipresent Law and Principles of Agreement may be simple to understand, but hard to apply. As we delve deeper into the meaning and value of these laws, effective collaboration and synergy can at last become a shared vision.
Management Tips and Tricks
Making Law Firm Leadership More Effective
Large law firms are starting to resemble corporate entities, however, there is some variation in management styles. Take a few pointers from the business world by clearly defining the roles of your leaders, facilitating effective communication and sorting out management issues.
When Resolving Your Clients' Legal Issues, Don’t Forget the Court of Public Opinion
Partnering with an outside consultant can be beneficial for both your firm and your clients. Specialized in issue-oriented research and communications, they can do a great deal to influence the court of public opinion.
Forgotten Colleagues
In recent decades, law firms have hired more women and people of color, but are they leaving out those with disabilities? Opening the doors to the entire pool of available talent takes more than honest intentions. Here, Michael Greco provides the steps to improve your firm’s hiring process and promote equality in the profession.
Leaders and the Four Fatal Fears
Leaders' fears and anxieties have a direct impact on their organization. The fear of failure, being wrong, rejection, and being emotionally uncomfortable all impede effective interaction with others. Become aware of your fears and follow these exercises to change this behavior.
Practice Management Q & A
Taking a Practice-Centric Approach to Marketing
Aligning law offices' marketing departments along practice group lines can improve your level of service, quality, expertise, and efficiency. As this approach evolves, an increasing number of firms adopt some variation of it and see significant benefits. See how your firm can partner its marketing with practice groups successfully.
Management by Agreement
Communication Essentials
We all know the value of effective communication, but that is often easier said than done. This insightful article first looks at how society has facilitated ineffective communicators and then provides a scholarly solution.
The Lawyer's Guide to Balancing Life and Work
This review of "The Lawyer's Guide to Balancing Life and Work," gives hope to the possibility that you can be happy in life and at work. Rediscover your personal goals and motivations for practicing law by forming a personal action plan for change. At last, you could find a work/life balance with success and happiness.
Management Tips and Tricks
Risky Business - Some Thoughts on Legal Malpractice Insurance
Malpractice is a predominant concern for the profession, and more so for small firms and independent practitioners. Mandatory disclosure of malpractice liability insurance is a growing trend and with that comes increased risk of a malpractice suits. This article investigates these recent trends in malpractice insurance and provides preventative measures you may take to avoid malpractice.
Management by Agreement
Evaluations that Motivate: An Internal and External Map for Having Authentic Feedback and Development Conversations
Employee evaluation conversations have the potential to be a very powerful tool for producing desired results, satisfied employees and successful managers. Follow this road map to facilitate conversation and achieve a clear, mutual agreement.
Management by Agreement
Creating a Law Firm Transition Plan
Many small and midsize law firms are facing the departure of the lawyers who founded the firm (and sometimes their clients as well). Without a transition plan that addresses retirement, these firms face an uncertain future. Learn more about how this can be avoided at your organization.
Management by Agreement
A Fresh Start for the New Year
Resolve to make this the year you get the results you want. It can be easier than you think if you understand and adopt the Laws and Principles of Agreement.
Management Tips and Tricks
Are You Unique Enough to Deserve A Raise?
When a law firm bases its billing on costs rather than value, it increases the risk of underselling its services. Yet, without a unique selling position, the client rarely sees past the costs. Ed Poll offers some suggestions on how providing solutions, not just services, can help increase your value and ultimately increase your annual income.
2006
The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Amended Federal Discovery Rules
When the complexities of the legal landscape are added to the logistical difficulties of performing effective privilege reviews on millions of page-equivalents of information within the tight timeframes of typical pretrial discovery, it should come as no surprise that efforts are being made to develop laws for privilege and privilege waiver. This article addresses principally federal law on privileges.
Management by Agreement
The Many Costs of Conflict
The cost of conflict represents a resource drain of huge proportion and a source of great unhappiness and discomfort.
Practice Management Q&A
How Can Managing Partners Optimize Practice Leader Performance?
Learn how your firm can maximize existing talent by establishing clear expectations, providing leadership development and improving communications.
Management Tips and Tricks
The Dynamics of Billing, Profits and Compensation
Many law firm compensation models are designed for individual gains rather than long-term growth and sustainability. Yet if a firm wants to promote the kind of cooperative effort that increases billings and profitability, it must change to a more cooperative compensation model.
Should Auld Lawyers Be Forgot, and Never Brought to Mind?
For the first time in U.S. history, four generations are working side by side. Do the benefits of this multigenerational environment outweigh the "graying of the bar" as expressed in a Seattle Times article?
Successful Law Firms Plan for Success
Architect Daniel H. Burnham once said “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood...Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.” In this article, Tom Collins identifies nine subject areas that will help law firms achieve success through planning.
Customer Service for Lawyers
Why do some law firms excel at bringing in new business and keeping clients while others struggle? They understand that every contact every time shapes the client's opinion. In this article you will learn the essential practices for providing exceptional customer service.
Management Tips and Tricks
Take the Mystery – and Fear – Out of Budgeting Your Engagements
A budget is essentially a strategy expressed through financial terms. Budgets reflect careful planning, experienced forecasting and can be a vital part of successful client engagements. This column addresses the importance and potential outcomes of developing a budget.
Management Tips and Tricks
Building Your Team
"Team" is commonly described as a group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose for which they are mutually accountable. For a law firm, this should include everyone from rainmakers to support staff. Yet recognition rarely goes beyond those with their names on the front door. Find out what you can do to increase the success of your team.
Are Your Recruiting Efforts Geared for the Online Generation? New Rules, New Tools for Recruiting Law Students
Do Blackberries outnumber iPods in your office? The connected generation is no longer a passive audience when it comes to obtaining information. Make sure your recruitment efforts are aligned with the newest generation of graduates.
Exploring Alternate Careers for Lawyers
What is your dream job? Don't let your qualifications, talents or skills get in the way of your answer. Kathleen Brady explores this topic while alleviating the fear of explaining that you are not "wasting" your legal education.
Infuse Passion Into Your Career
People tend to be motivated by what they like not by what makes sense. Yet, most people allow obligations and external forces to be the driving force behind their career choices. Think about this, if you tap into your passions and you will energize your career development.
The Art of Delegating
Anyone who has ever managed even one person understands how important it is to be able to delegate (even when a task may be performed better and faster by the supervisor). In fact, the better your team does under your leadership, the more value you will bring to your organization. To become more effective at delegating, use the four step process outlined in this article.
Management Tips and Tricks
Successful Business Development Means Closing the Communications Gap
As a lawyer, you don't practice law, you serve clients. If clients don't recognize the benefits of what you do, they will become dissatisfied with you and no amount of marketing effort will retain them. Find out what is necessary and why it is important to improve your communication with clients.
Management by Agreement
Managing the Engagement: Creating Agreements for Results
Imagine creating an agreement that identifies success and results rather than protection. How would this change your client engagement? Read more to learn how this will build better client relationships and potentially more repeat business.
Management by Agreement
Managing the Engagement: Creating Agreements for Results
Imagine creating an agreement that identifies success and results rather than protection. How would this change your client engagement? Read more to learn how this will build better client relationships and potentially more repeat business.
Management by Agreement
Planning Successful Law Firm Retreats
Before you plan your next firm retreat make sure you understand and identify the objectives, or as Christy Burke suggests first the Why, then the Where. Following a clear vision of the event's purpose will have an enormous impact on the success of your event.
Managing Up: A Key to Workplace Success
Are you managing the one relationship that has a direct effect on your success? Managing upward is often the key to a successful career. Learn how to build bridges rather than moats in your workplace.
Management by Agreement
Resolutionary View: 10 Principles for Developing the Attitude of Resolution
A resolutionarySM looks at the situation, and from the perspective of standing in the clients' shoes, tries to design the best process--a process that will get to resolution quickly without making things worse. Learn more about how your firm can incorporate these 10 principles into its culture. It should result in more satisfied clients and employees.
Management Tips and Tricks
No Matter What Financial Yardstick You Use, Cash Is King
Smart lawyers understand that good financial management is as critical to their success as legal acumen. Make sure you understand the basics.
The Business of Legal Services
Operating like a business first and a law firm second may just be the difference between success and failure.
Practice Management Q&A
How Do You Differentiate Your Practice Group From The Masses?
Do you know what sets you apart from your competition? Do potential clients know? Learn about the seven "competitive capabilities" that will help distinguish your firm from your competition and help develop new business.
Management Tips and Tricks
Taking an Administrator's Job? Approach It Like a Client!
If you want your employer to understand and respect your contribution to the firm, it may be helpful to spell it out.
So Associates Are Dissatisfied? It's Not Hard to See Why!
Increasing firm profits begins with hiring the right people and allowing them to succeed and be satisfied. Yet many firms pursue a flawed business model that doesn’t follow this path. Find out what needs to be done to change the course at your firm.
Preparing to Say Goodbye to the Baby Boomers
Is your firm prepared for exodus of the baby boom generation? Do you know what issues need to be resolved today? Learn more about how to prepare your firm for the changing demographics in the workforce.
Too Much To Do Too Little Time?
Find out why your 'Don't Do' list may be more important than your 'To Do' list
Too Much To Do Too Little Time?
Find out why your 'Don't Do' list may be more important than your 'To Do' list
Creating & Using Issue Analysis Memos: Part 2
In part 2 of this series, Greg Krehel discusses the ways an issue and argument outline can clarify your thinking, educate your team and build consensus.
Are You Privileged? Don't Be Too Sure When It Comes to Ethics
Not all ethical issues are as clear-cut as the misuse of client trust. In his article, Ed Poll discusses two ethical situations that could confront any attorney.
Creating & Using Issue Analysis Memos: Part 1
Of the hundreds of hours you invest in a case, the handful needed to work up an issue analysis memo could easily be the most important. Make this simple case analysis tool a standard for every matter and you'll always have a tight grasp on issues and arguments and ultimately on the case itself.
Management Tips and Tricks
Into the Sunset—How Will You Transition Your Practice?
When it is time to transition your practice there are a number of ways to make it profitable and beneficial for all parties; yet few attorneys explore their options. Are you prepared?
Three Hot Trends in Law Firm Business Development
There is no silver bullet to growth. Measured growth through smart business practices will net larger returns.
Management Tips and Tricks
Do Prospects Want Your Testimonials – Or You?
Do you want a quantifiable marketing strategy that will help you grow your client base? Of course. Are testimonials the best way to achieve this goal? Probably not. Find out why by reading Edward Poll's column.
Management By Agreement
The Physiology of Peak Performance
35 new email messages; a staff meeting; two conference calls; 1 deadline; 3 memos to get out; and a son at home from school with a cold. Everyone is out to get you, even the guy who cut you off on the freeway while you were checking voicemail on your cell phone. Typical day? No worries. You just have to get through the next few weeks and then 8 relaxing days on Maui. You'll be like new. Right? Wrong!
Practice Management Q&A
How Is Practice Management Different for Mid-sized Firms?
Culture. Compensation. Talent. Practice Management. All four play an important yet distinct role in the management of a mid-sized firm versus a large firm.
How to Get Motivated
If your 'to do' list is so long you don't know where to start, read Allison Shields' 10 ways to get motivated. You will soon be inspired to 'get moving.'
The Case for Outsourcing Investigative Litigation Support
What can you gain from hiring a pre-litigation investigation service? Everything.
Virtual Help: An Outsourcing Relationship With a Virtual Assistant Can Complete Your Team
Advanced technology and the changing economy have paved the way for a new trend in office support. It is available to any size firm and it could transform the way you manage your office. What is it called? The Virtual Assistant.
Inside vs. Outside: When Does it Make Sense for Law Firms to Outsource?
In this roundtable discussion, a panel of experts take on one of the hottest topics in law practice management – outsourcing.
Management Tips and Tricks
Special Appearances Can Be a Special Outsourcing Worry
Don’t let a simple favor turn into a major malpractice suit. In his column, Edward Poll reminds lawyers to protect themselves in addition to protecting their clients.
Best Practices in Creating Chronologies
A fact chronology can be a tremendous asset as you prepare a case for trial. Yet, the majority of chronologies fail to live up to their full potential. This article highlights some simple steps that will help you get the most out of your efforts.
Management Tips and Tricks
Do You Know Who – and Where – Your Biggest Clients Are?
Are your biggest clients one person removed from leaving your firm? When new business is driven through referrals, the loss of a big client may also mean the loss of future referrals.
Practice Management Q&A
What Does It Take to Develop Effective Law Firm Leaders?
In today's environment, many senior partners are more like sports figures, periodically switching to the team that pays the most or adds the most value to their client base. This results in firms without strong leadership to guide them. How can you develop effective leaders at your firm?
Four Realities of Value-Based Pricing
Logic doesn't always reflect reality when it comes to value-based pricing. Before you make the leap make sure you're prepared with these sobering observations.
Are You Coachable?
Ready or not, it makes all of the difference between success and failure.
The Buck Stops Here
In engaging talent, managers have more power and influence than anyone else.
Unchangeable Factors in the Job Search
Ready for a job change? Make sure you are the ideal candidate.
You Can Find Time to De-Stress
In the midst of chaos, is it possible to sharpen your skills, meet your responsibilities and avoid stress? Pat McHenry Sullivan says yes.
Management By Agreement
Essentials of Effective Communication
Tune-up your communications and improve your engagements in 10+ easy steps.
Management Tips and Tricks
Even the Lone Ranger Needed Tonto: Staff is Essential in Any Solo Practice
Outsourcing should be a part of your business plan regardless of the size of your firm.
Practice Management Q&A
How Do Client and Industry Teams Fit Into Our Practice Management Structure?
Client Industry Teams Part II - Do's and Don'ts for Successful Client Teams
Management
Leaders and Followers in the Practice of Law
True leaders know when to set aside self-preservation when pursuing the right course of action.
Those Who Can, Coach: The Power of Coaching Can Transform Your Life
Reaching ones goals is rarely accomplished alone; athletes, politicians, and musicians all employ coaches. Find out if a coach could help you realize your potential.
Look Behind Before You Look Ahead to the New Year
Before you set your goals for 2006, consider these ten questions and conduct a personal year-end review. The end result will be a personal vision that is more predictive of success.
Don't Just Set Goals for 2006: Achieve Them
While setting goals each year is admirable, achieving them is the greatest challenge. Find out what it takes to make your 2006 goals a reality.
Management By Agreement
A Fresh Start for the New Year
Resolve to make this the year you get the results you want. It can be easier than you think if you understand and adopt the Laws and Principles of Agreement.
Practice Management Q&A
How Do Practice Leaders Get Their Jobs Done and Still Have a Practice? The Emerging Role of Practice Management Professionals
For many lawyers, there are simply not enough hours in a day to practice law and manage the business side of their firms. Find out how some firms successfully manage this conundrum.
Ethics and Time-Based Billing
Is your firm's billing practices in accordance with the ABA's Formal Opinion? ABA Opinion 93-379 explores padding, inflating and over-billing clients.
2005
Management By Agreement
Preventing Conflict
Stewart Levine offers some practical advice you can put to good use immediately in all of your professional and personal relationships.
Management Tips and Tricks
Is Client Service Unprofessional? Too Often, We Seem To Say Yes!
Starting with law school, effective client communication is all but ignored. Yet addressing this topic is controversial to many and irrelevant to others. Where do you stand on the issue?
Bringing Outside Voices In: The Logic for Having An Advisory Board
Imagine bouncing ideas off your own special management think tank. Would your firm benefit from an advisory board created to offer counsel on various aspects of business, including growth and client service?
How to Succeed as a Lawyer
More than 40 years ago, attorney Roland Boyd of McKinney wrote a letter to his son offering tips on how to be a successful lawyer. When several State Bar officials saw the letter, they prevailed upon the elder Boyd to allow the Texas Bar Journal to print it. Boyd agreed and it appeared in the November 1963 issue. With permission, it is being reprinted in Law Practice Today.
Assessing Your Office Culture
Imagine if your firm focused all of its marketing efforts on one goal: to get people--clients, prospects, and employees-- to talk about you in a positive way. How do you begin? Start by reviewing your firm culture.
Words Into Action: Five Strategies Law Departments Should Use To Assist Their Outside Counsel Firms In Increasing Diversity
While increasing diversity among the senior ranks at law firms has been a goal, it hasn't always been attained. Virginia Grant suggests five strategies to effectively change this situation.
Management By Agreement
Tips to Keep Your Agreements on Track
This encore of one of Stewart Levine's most popular columns originally appeared in the October 2004 issue of Law Practice Today.
Management Tips and Tricks
To Transform Your Practice, Provide Value, not Time
Are your clients satisfied with the value they are receiving in return for the fees they pay? Are you? Find out how to transform your practice so that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding YES.
Practice Management Q&A
Compensating for Practice Group and Team Efforts
Incentives are the cornerstone of most successful compensation programs. Yet many firms structure their incentives without regard for group and team activities. The result? Missed opportunities for growth.
Ten Tips for Dealing with Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Issues
The most overlooked component of disaster recovery plans is often the most important - your staff. They will play a vital role in your success. Are they prepared?
Disaster Recovery Planning
What are you going to do when the unthinkable happens? If you plan ahead, the unthinkable doesn't have to be the insurmountable. Make sure you review this checklist to ensure your firm's success should tragedy strike.
Would You and Your Practice Survive These Common Disasters?
Although you’re unlikely to ever experience a major, practice-ending disaster, the fact is disaster can strike anyone, anywhere, anytime. Take this quiz to determine your ability to survive and thrive through these common disaster scenarios.
Protect Your Clients and Yourself: Prepare for Disaster Before it Happens
When disaster strikes, foresight and planning can make the difference between your practice surviving a disaster, and not. Ellen Freedman offers a list of actions that should be a part of every disaster plan. Make sure it is part of yours.
Resilience
It is the word we would use to define the ability to thrive in challenging situations. Can it be learned? Read more on how building resilience will enhance your practice and your life.
Management By Agreement
Lawyer Leaders: The Opportunity of Katrina
Ever since Katrina hit, many of us are asking what, can I do? How can I help? When tragedy strikes, the world looks to its leaders for assistance. Members of the legal profession may fill this role in a variety of capacities.
Management Tips and Tricks
Disaster Planning After the Apocalypse
Disaster planning isn't just for organizations located near the Gulf of Mexico, ground zero, or a major fault line. Will you still be in business if a major disaster, such as an untimely death or fire, strikes your organization?
Practice Management Q&A
How Do Client and Industry Teams Fit Into Our Practice Management Structure?
Is your firm reaching its fullest potential through its client and industry teams? If they are only a part of your marketing mix, the answer is no. Find out how these teams should fit into practice management.
The Changing of The Guard: Selecting Your Next Managing Partner
Few decisions have as profound an effect on the direction or management of a firm as the selection of a managing partner. Read more on how to make sure you are prepared to make the best selection and provide a smooth transition.
Lawyers as Leaders of Change in Customer Service by Professionals
Providing excellent customer service is one way a law firm can distinguish itself from its competition. Why? Because, today more than ever, it is so rare.
Management Q&A
How Can My Firm Avoid the Pitfalls in Implementing Effective Practice Management?
Do the words “effective practice management” cause a pained look to come across your face? Read on to find out how you can experience a more satisfying and rewarding practice by avoiding common pitfalls.
Management by Agreement
Developing the Attitude of Resolution
Honesty, creativity, innovation, care for people, and integrity. Not words you often hear in the same sentence as the word “lawyer.” Stewart Levine hopes to change that with the general adoption of his 10 principles of the Attitude of Resolution.
Back to School
When September rolls around each year, thoughts naturally turn to cooler temperatures or the start of a new school year. Either way, it represents a time for change. Why not pick up a book? It’s portable, relatively cheap, conveys knowledge and can inspire change. Read more for Wendy Werner’s top picks for the fall.
Q: Is Practice Management Just The Latest Fad?
Without a strategy that differentiates the firm from many other similar firms, a practice group structure and effective management can go only so far.
Every Child Deserves a Home: Gail Johnson
Gail Johnson spent her professional life working as a children’s advocate, yet her success in placing children with the right families often ended in frustration. It wasn’t until she worked with Stewart Levine to understand the basis for conflict resolution that she was able to move past the obstacles and experience true success.
Coaches for Lawyers: Helping You Reach Your Goals
Top athletes in every sport have personal coaches. They understand the value of a coach and how it will improve their performance. If you want to gain more control over your practice, your business and your life, read more about why your practice would benefit from a coach.
Making Your Well Thought Out Strategic Plan an Implementation Success
Successful law firms understand the importance of both planning and implementation. Read how your firm can make a smooth transition from one stage to the next and realize all of the benefits of strategic planning.
The Case for Motherhood
Why are high-achieving, well-educated women leaving the workforce? In many cases, the reasons have more to do with their employer than changes within their own lives.
Advice for Young Lawyers about Career Development
Paula Nailon, J.D. identifies simple and practical steps to gain control of your career. The key is to implement them. Are you up to the challenge?
Surviving Your "Junioring" Years
The first few years out of law school are often considered the least enjoyable and most stressful. According to David Levy, however, it doesn’t need to be that way. Levy offers a few suggestions that could change your entire experience as you navigate the next few years.
Twenty Lessons for Lawyers Starting Their Careers
Much of what you need to know as a lawyer is not covered in law school or found in textbooks. Read Dennis Kennedy’s article on the lessons he’s learned about practicing law. It will serve you well and save you time in the long run.
Journal of a Young Lawyer
Sherry Fowler is lawyer who writes about her experiences on her blog Stay of Execution. This article is an insight into some of her experiences and thoughts about navigating today's legal system.
Tips from the Marketing Director for New Associates
It’s never too early (or too late) to start marketing. Jenna Gruen, Director of Marketing and Practice Development for a Minneapolis law firm, offers some useful tips to get you started.
Navigating Detours on the Road to Success
Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections, failed at two businesses and had a nervous breakdown before becoming our 16th President. The road to success is always filled with detours, speed bumps and potholes. To minimize their impact you must be prepared, learn from your failures and accept that change is inevitable. Read more
Career Vision: Moving Your Life From Stress to Balance
For many individuals, the title of this article implies something that they don’t believe is possible. Whether you are ready for a change or are simply intrigued by the concept, read on to find out how you can create a personal vision that has the power to change your life.
Unconventional Wisdom for Associates
Do you have the potential to be a superstar at work? You do if you heed the humorous and thought-provoking advice of Kimm Alayne Walton, speaker and byline of numerous law-related books.
The Basic Principles of Ethical Behavior
Nothing is as important as being able to identify ethical problems before they become serious. Lazar Emanuel, graduate of Harvard Law School and publisher of the New York Professional Responsibility Report, outlines the basic principles of ethical behavior all lawyers should know and practice.
Pulling in the Same Direction: The Open Book Revolution
Building trust among law firm partners and employees isn’t easy, but it is possible. Ed Poll introduces a revolutionary approach to management in his article on Open Book Management. Read more
Resources to Prepare You for Your First Days as a Lawyer, and for the Days that Follow
If you are relying on Google to find all of your legal-related information, you are missing a wealth of resources that are right at your fingertips. Dennis Kennedy offers tips on finding the most useful resources on the Internet (and beyond) for new lawyers.
The Changing World of Work
Do you find that your organization is constantly changing, that you are not sure where to focus your time and energy? Do you find that you struggle to put your life in balance and that work takes an overwhelming amount of time in your life? Do you question, “Am I in the right job?” If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you are not alone.
Speaking Engagements for Attorneys: Eight Steps to Obtaining Opportunities for Business Development, Marketing and Public Relations
Are you preaching to the choir when you hold seminars or give presentations? Steve Markman, President, Markman Speaker Management, provides some ways to expand your business through public speaking.
10 Ways to Reinvent Yourself or Your Firm
Stewart Levine examines the “Ways” and “Means” to reinventing and re-energizing your law practice.
Resources to Help You Avoid Disaster in Your Disaster Recovery Plan
It's easy to get all worked up about disaster recovery and then slowly let the issue slip away from you when nothing terrible happens for a while. Dennis Kennedy provides a list of resources to assist development of your disaster recovery plan.
Outcome-Focused Leadership
In a profession that offers a service that is a commodity, outcome-focused leadership may be what is needed to deliver real results.
Your Future: Is There A Merger There? Are You Going To Follow The Lemmings Or Set Your Own Course?
Why do some firm mergers succeed while others fail? Before beginning this process, both sides should evaluate the marketplace and the likelihood that the core values will be a good fit. William Cobb identifies market trends and their implications for mergers.
The Aligned Law Firm and Partner Compensation
Creating a fair compensation system depends in part on a firms ability to clearly articulate their vision.
Contracts with Style
If you draft legal documents for a living, don't miss Marc Lauritsen's review of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting by Kenneth Adams.
Developing the “Great” Law Firm
David Freeman fills the gap between the management principles promoted in Good to Great and the practice of those theories in the legal industry.
Management Tips & Tricks:
Cell phones – Great New Technology or Latest Per Se Negligence?
Drivers on cell phones are certainly annoying; could they also be a risk for their employer?
Management by Agreement:
Courageous Conversations
How courageous are your conversations with your colleagues, clients and families? Stewart Levine argues that our capacity to engage in meaningful conversations contributes to our productivity.
2004
Looking to the Future: What Changes Do You See Coming in the Next Twenty Years?
The last twenty years have been pretty exciting, with word processing, accounting systems, PCs, networks, cell phones, email, and, ultimately, the Internet. How about the next twenty? Will law firms exist in their present form? How about that billable hour? What technology will shake things half as much as PCs and the Internet? Once again, I asked our panel how things might change and what will likely stay the same? Some of their answers might surprise you. Read on to see.
Don’t Just Plan – Implement: Steps to Successful Practice Group Plans
Business plans are essential to the success of any Practice Group. Susan Raridon Lambreth outlines ten steps Practice Groups should use when creating one that will achieve results.
Small Talk Can Lead to Big Things
Do you sweat the small stuff? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. Wendy Werner provides some insight into mastering the skill of small talk.
The Strongest Links
Crystal Ball Resources for Looking into the Future of the Practice of Law
While the public discussion on the future of law practice has quieted down, it is alive and well on the Web. Dennis Kennedy recommends a few Web sites you shouldn’t miss as you examine this topic.
Successful Extranets Start with a Focus on Your People
In this article, Daniel and von Elling discuss how extranet projects can keep your clients updated and informed during unsettling times.
Management by Agreement:
The Law of Agreement
Collaboration is such a fundamental life skill, yet our early schooling did not include a course in effective collaboration. The only way most of us get better at expressing agreements is because we suffered in the past because one of our agreements was insufficient. Unfortunately, unless we shift our way of thinking as result of our learning or experience, we just get more paranoid and protective as time goes by.
Management Tips and Tricks:
Making Money: Your Practical Guide to Profit™ Part II
In Part I, Ed Poll covered the five most important measurement benchmarks, and he started to outline his practical tips for making more profit. In this part, he finishes with five more money-making suggestions for lawyers.
Management By Agreement:
Tips to Keep Your Agreements on Track
Have you created a roadmap for negotiating and implementing your next agreement? Stewart Levine offers some tips and techniques to smoothly navigate an often conflict-ridden journey.
The Art And Craft Of “Doing The Minutes”
If you feel that being secretary of a volunteer group is a menial and undignified calling, consider this: there are few roles a person can play which provide more perspective on the workings of an organization.
Management By Agreement
: The Many Costs of Conflict
Is it possible to create a win-win situation in conflict resolution? What are the real costs involved? Stewart Levine answers these questions and more by uncovering the true cost of conflict.
Can We Have Fun When We Work in Deadly Serious Jobs?
When clients and potential clients walk into the lobby and reception area of your law firm, do they feel fear or trust? The answer may mean the difference between a satisfactory relationship and an exceptional relationship with your clients.
Appreciative Inquiry: It's Not Easy, But It Is Simple
At some point in our professional careers, we all feel ineffective in our problem-solving skills. In this article, Cathy Clark suggests you focus on the possibilities rather than the problems. Rather than focus on what isn't working, she suggests you focus on what does work.
The Strongest Links
Finding Great Resources About Mentoring on the Internet May Be Even More Difficult Than Finding a Great Mentor On Your Own
Dennis Kennedy shares his experience with mentors and mentoring as well as a list of hard-to-find online resources.
Management By Agreement
Getting Clear: The Value of a Mentoring Agreement
Creating a formal mentoring agreement clarifies responsibilities and helps avoid any misconceptions about the mentoring relationship. A sample mentoring agreement is included here.
Management Tips and Tricks
Cash Flow: Ten Tips to Keep it Moving
Without cash flow, a firm can quickly come to a grinding halt. Ed Poll shares ten tips on how to keep your bank account full on a regular basis.
Road Map to the Future? Navigating Your Practice to Seize Opportunities
Do you have a road map for your law practice? Do you know where you want to be ten years from now? Carol Gausz-Mandelberg takes us through the steps to develop a strategic plan.
Mentoring Associates: It's Simply Good for Business
See how some Canadian law firms have integrated mentoring programs into their practices and how those programs have made their firms stronger.
Generation X and the Millenials: What You Need to Know About Mentoring the New Generations
Mentoring can be difficult if you don't "connect" with your mentee. Understanding your generational differences can help improve your mentoring relationship.
Making an Ongoing Mentoring Relationship Stronger and More Productive
Every mentoring relationship will find its own path to success. To make that success even stronger, key elements must be introduced to the relationship, including candid feedback, monitoring progress toward goals, and more.
Preparing For a Mentoring Relationship
Before starting a mentoring relationship, you have to know what to expect. Before you decide to be a mentor or mentee, read this first.
Mentoring: Its Time Has Come—Again
Dan Pinnington explains a new style of mentoring and how it can help the legal profession, and clears up some classic myths.
Strategic Self-Assessment
In today's competitive marketplace, a strong firmwide strategy is the key to success. If your firm has a strategic plan, Ward Bower provides a quick self-assessment to see how adequate your plan is in today's competitive environment.
The Importance of Mentoring
Career coach Wendy Werner explains the difficulties with mentoring programs and tips on how to make a mentor/mentee relationship successful.
The Power of Trust in Law Practices: What Is It and How Do You Get It?
Trust provides the foundation for healthy client and employee relationships. Yet, trust is also a highly complex topic that means different things to different people. Learn about the three types of trust and how you can gain that trust from your clients.
Can Your Firm Afford You? How Profitability Helps Associates Keep Their Jobs
It takes an average of three to five years for a new lawyer to break-even on their firm's investment in them. See how you contribute to the net profits of your firm by knowing your own personal financial formula.
Building Rapport in a Coaching Relationship
Building rapport is actually building a mutual trust between two individuals. When working with a client, rapport is crucial to how well the client is satisfied with your service. Here are five tips on how to develop good rapport.
Strategies for Successful Knowledge Management in Large Law Firms: Lessons Learned from Experiences with Document Management Systems
This mini-roundtable takes a look at Knowledge Management issues from the past experiences with Document Management systems. Dennis and Ron share their insight on this issue.
Conflict & Contract to Collaboration & Covenant
When we work with contracts or agreements with individuals we naturally have a "me vs. them" mentality with the desired end result to be in our own favor. Stewart shares his vision on how changing from a "you or me" to a "you and me" attitude benefits everyone.
Six Things That Drive Clients Crazy (And What You Can Do to Avoid Them)
Keep your client relations on a good note. Here are suggestions on how to avoid six common client complaints.
Where Have the Women Attorneys Gone?
Is it a "pipeline" issue or are law firms not addressing the lack of current women partners? Wendy explores this reality and the reasons why.
What Clients Want: Learn How to Listen to Clients When They Talk (Foonberg's Rules of Listening)
When you sit down with a client, are you really devoting all of your attention to him or her? Jay explains his "Rules of Listening" and how they enhance the client relationship.
Getting Legal Work and Fees from Other Lawyers
Have you set up a referral network yet? Jay gives some tips on how to adhere to ethical rules while soliciting for work.
Ten Rules for Avoiding Disciplinary Complaints
It is estimated that every year about one disciplinary complaint is filed for every ten lawyers. Here are ten rules to help you avoid disciplinary complaints all together.
How to Manage Key-Client Marketing
Keeping clients is like flossing your teeth, "Floss only those teeth you want to keep."
Employment Agreements
Can you answer the two questions "What does your supervisor expect from you?" and "What do you expect from your supervisor?" If not, maybe it is time you put together an Employment Agreement.
Legal Services Going Offshore - A Critical Trend!
It's not just happening to manufacturing and customer service industries, offshoring is happening to the legal industry as well.
Getting to Resolution – Part II
Stewart Levine continues his discussion on a model for resolving conflict. Here he reveals steps four through seven.
Examining The Feasibility of the Leased Law Firm Executive
Can a leased law firm executive be the answer to your firm's needs? John Iezzi takes a look at this different type of law firm management and explores the possibilities.
Getting to Resolution – Part I
Stewart Levine introduces a model for resolving conflict over three of seven steps in this first installment.
Communicate With Status Reports
Ed Poll shares a new perspective on how to keep clients updated on your progress.
Looking to the Future: What Changes Do You See in the Next Twenty Years?
What do you think the legal profession will be like in twenty years? Six law students, four young lawyers, and two other professionals share their views in this roundtable.
Electronic Document Retention Policies (And Why Your Clients Need Them)
We all think about the question, "Do I need to keep this file?" Then comes, "For how long?" Paul French explains what to keep and how to ensure compliance.
A Vision for Virtual Law Firms--Questions You Should Be Asking
With new technology making virtual firms more of a reality, Dennis Kennedy asks some interesting questions about the topic.
Charismatic Communication for Coaches
Use a little charisma in your communication to your coachee to build more trust and a better relationship.
Can Lawyers Still Keep a Secret? Not Under the New Snitch Rules
We start with the premise that full disclosure to a lawyer is essential in order for the lawyer to best assert and protect the interests of the client. Given that premise, the question is: Can the lawyer keep a secret? The answer: Not under new "snitch" rules!
2003
Practice Management Primer
The principle resource of any law firm is its complement of legal talent. Managing those resources in the provision of quality and timely legal services, at a cost that is economical for the client and economically rewarding for the owner is the primary function of Practice Management.
The Most Common Malpractice Errors
Don't fall into the trap of Malpractice. Keep the communication lines open and clear to avoid suits.
Emergency Time Management
Emergency Time Management is what's needed when the stress from a lack of time is moving towards being toxic.
Raising Your Rates: When and How to Do It
Debating raising your rates? Here are a few tips to help you implement the change effectively.
Partnering with Your Partners: Promoting Team Rewards
Ed Poll debuts his column on legal management.
Is There a Down Side to Viewing Law as a Business?
Does there seem to be a recent focus on the business side of practicing law? Mark shares his recent experiences with this topic and if there is a down side to this thinking.
Agreeing on Results: Ten Steps for Success
Too often people jump into agreements without taking the time to make them explicit. But, if you don't take the time to work through these issues at the beginning you may pay later through the cost of inevitable conflict.
Next Generation Management: Can An Invitational Leadership Approach (ILA) Work In Law Firms?
Looking for a new management approach in your firm? An Invitational Leadership Approach might be what you are looking for. Ann wraps up her three article series on management techniques exploring this model.
Client/Case Screening—Starting Off On The Right Foot
When looking to take on these new clients or cases, how are you screening them to make sure you are making the best match for you, and them? This handy checklist will help you make the right decision.
What's Important? Putting Priorities In Order for Managing A Successful Law Practice
If you have leadership and/or management responsibility in your firm, it is worth taking the time-out to sharpen your core awareness and perspective. In management lingo, the ROI [return on investment] is highest when an individual strengthens competencies that, in turn, strengthen the firm's core capabilities.
Emotional Wisdom: Motivation and Survival for Law Practice Managers
Much has been published recently about EQ, emotional intelligence. Some bylines say EQ is more important than IQ. That evidence will be long in the works and, in the end, meta-analysis of all the research will most likely report: "It depends. It depends on the situation, the people, and the task at hand."
Most Popular LPT Articles
Law Practice Benchmark Survey
Topic: Business Development Initiatives
Last chance to participate in this month's exclusive study to benchmark how your firm's business development initiatives stack up against other firms. Check the results in an upcoming issue of Law Practice Magazine to see how your law firm compares.
LPM Resources
Law Practice is the ABA Law Practice Management Section's award-winning magazine. Published eight times a year, Law Practice is the leading magazine on the business of practicing law, providing insightful articles and practical tips on marketing, management, technology, finance and more.
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