Organizing books and files

June 5, 2019 by
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I have no life. That’s what some people would say if they saw me reading an article about the different ways to organize your bookshelves.

Behold a few of the ways:

  • Alphabetical, By Title
  • Alphabetical, By Author
  • By Genre
  • Chronologically
  • By Publication Date
  • By Why You Read them
  • By How Much You Like Them
  • By Color
  • By Size

What’s missing? Right, no mention of the Dewey Decimal System. Who are these whipper snappers?

Okay, I don’t use the Dewey Decimal System. I very loosely group books by topic. But since I’ve reduced my physical book collection from thousands of books down to one bookcase, it really doesn’t matter.

I do have thousands of digital files (and Kindle books) and for those, I rely primarily on search and tags.

I also organize digital reference files alphabetically. That way, I can browse through categories. That helps when I don’t know what I have (so I don’t know what to search for) or I’m looking for ideas.

In my law office, I filed client files alphabetically. I tried other systems but alphabetical (client last name, client first name; for litigation, client name vs. (or adv.) opposing party) was simple and effective.

I also set up a file number system–two digits for the year, followed by a hyphen, and then a four digit sequential number, starting with 1001.

The 25th file opened this year would have this file number 19-1025. I’m not sure how I came up with this but it gave me another way to track “come ups” (ticklers) and statutes in a paper calendar.

I know, fascinating.

Actually, it is. I think most people are interested in how others organize things.

So, what do you do?

How do you organize your client files and reference files (paper and/or digital)?

Okay, I’ll bite: how do you organize your books?

I’ll bet more people organize their books by color than by The Dewey Decimal System, but you never know. Steve?

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Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity Tagged With: ,

If you want to make everyone happy, sell ice cream

June 4, 2019 by
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John C. Maxwell said, “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.” By that definition, you are a leader.

People listen to you, not necessarily because of your title, skills, or experience, but because of your character, compassion, and strength.

People look up to leaders. They want to associate with them, learn from them, follow them. As a leader, you set the destination and the pace of the journey.

“This is where I’m going,” you say. “I hope you’ll join me.”

You show the world the path to a better future and some people choose to follow.

As a lawyer, you may be able to persuade them to follow. As a leader, you let them persuade themselves.

That’s influence.

Others will choose not to follow. You have to let them go. You can’t change the destination or compromise your values because of the whims of a few. You can’t slow down for the stragglers, they need to keep up with you.

You’ll disappoint people. You’ll face criticism. Your willingness to accept this is part of your strength, part of what makes others want to follow.

You can’t be an effective leader if you try to please everyone. You have to stay the course and be willing to accept the casualties.

As Steve Jobs said, “If you want to make everyone happy, don’t be a leader. Sell ice cream.”

Leaders build their influence through regular communication

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Filed Under: success Tagged With:

Are you sure about that?

June 3, 2019 by
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“I don’t know. I can’t recall. I’d be guessing.”

We like to hear things like this (sometimes) when our client is testifying but what about when we hear ourselves saying them?

They make us sound weak, don’t they?

No. They make us sound smart.

According to Jeff Bezos, “The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.”

Just when we think we’ve got this “law practice” thing working smoothly. . . that’s when we need to stop and re-assess.

What if we don’t know? What if we’re wrong? What if there’s a better way?

But do we do that?

Unfortunately, we often think we know better. We think we’re good at what we do and that’s enough. “If it ain’t broke. . .” we tell ourselves.

Sure, we take CLE, we read the journals, we keep up with the latest in our field. But all that knowledge can’t help us if we’re afraid to be wrong.

It takes courage to admit you’re not as good as should be, and courage to do something about it.

How do you develop that courage? A good place to start is to surround ourselves with people who challenge us and are willing to be honest with us and being willing to listen to them.

Early in my practice, I had people working for me who knew more than I knew and were better at their job than I was at mine. I got better at my job because I was willing to admit I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Today, I’d like to think I would be willing to do the same.

Would I? Would you?

If we’re as smart as we think we are, the right answer is “I don’t know”.

Is your email marketing as good as it could be?

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Filed Under: Email, Marketing legal services, Newsletters

Write or get off the “can”

May 31, 2019 by
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Once a year my CPA sends me an inch-thick stack of forms and instructions and important tax information. I’m sure it is very good information but I’ve never read it.

It’s too much. It’s fine print. And it’s about as dry as unbuttered toast.

Maybe your CPA sends something like this to you. Maybe they send you the identical package of information, purchased from the same service (I’m sure) my CPA buys it from.

Maybe your dentist, insurance agent, or financial planner sends you an outsourced or “canned” newsletter. Maybe you send something like this to your clients.

It’s better than not sending anything to clients, but let’s face it, most people don’t read it.

There’s a better way. Send your clients something you wrote and put some of “you” into it.

Share an idea and tell them what you think about it. Tell them about one of your clients who used that idea and benefited from it. Put some personality into your message and you’ll get more people to read it.

Why is that important? Because when people read what you send them, they are reminded that you’re still around, still helping clients, still available to help them or someone they know.

And when they read your message, they learn something that can benefit them. They appreciate you for that and look forward to your next message.

Be brief. A few paragraphs in an email is enough. You’re not in the “information delivery business,” after all.

Don’t buy it from a service. And don’t send it once a year.

An email newsletter is one of the easiest ways to provide value to your clients and one of the best ways to build your practice.

You can learn everything you need to know in my new Email Marketing for Attorneys course.

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Filed Under: Email, Newsletters

Who you know or ‘who knows you’?

May 30, 2019 by
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Who you know is important. But just as important is who knows you.

How many people (in your niche or market) know your name?

Or, more pointedly, how many people know someone who knows you?

Your network isn’t limited to people you know. It encompasses the people THEY know. If you know 250 people and each of them knows 250 people, you can potentially reach 62,500 people.

Whatever the size of your network, one thing is certain.

Your network is only as good as your ability to communicate with it.

If you want to notify your list of 250 people about your upcoming seminar or a new document you’ve added to your website, if you want to remind clients and prospects that you can help them (or someone they know) with their legal matter, how do you do that?

You can’t call everyone. Regular mail gets expensive. Social media limits who sees your messages.

The best way to connect with your list is email.

You own the list. You control the messages that get sent to it.

One click and your message goes to their mailbox. From there, your network can act on that message and share it with their network.

Email allows you to stay “in the minds and mailboxes” of the people who know you, until they’re ready to hire you (or hire you again) or send you a referral.

My new course, Email Marketing for Attorneys shows you how to use email to build your law practice.

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Filed Under: Email, Newsletters

Getting nine women pregnant

May 28, 2019 by
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How long does it take to build a successful law practice?

It takes as long as it takes and you can’t rush it.

As Warren Buffett said, “No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

It also takes focus.

You may have heard this Buffett story:

One day, Buffett’s long-time pilot asked him for career advice. Buffett suggested he make two lists.

First, make a list of your top 25 career goals, Buffett told him. Once he’d done that, Buffett told him to circle his top 5 goals.

His pilot then had two lists and told Buffett that he would begin working on his top 5 goals. Buffett asked him about the other list, the 20 items he didn’t circle.

The pilot said those goals were also important to him and he would work on them intermittently, as and when he could.

Buffett told him that was a mistake. “Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

Buffett knows a thing or two about focus. In his long career, he has achieved extraordinary investment returns investing in a handful of companies at a time.

“Diversification is a protection against ignorance,” Buffett said.
“It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.”

So, if you know what you’re doing as an attorney, if what you’re doing is working, even though it may not be working as quickly as you’d like, stay the course.

Be patient. Stay focused. Your baby will be here when he gets here.

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Filed Under: success Tagged With: , ,

It’s now or never

May 24, 2019 by
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We often tell ourselves things that aren’t true. We tell ourselves that we have to do something, right now, or we’ll never get another chance.

We tell ourselves we have to go “all in” or we can’t possibly be successful.

We tell ourselves we shouldn’t take certain risks because there’s too much to lose.

Too often, its just our fears talking.

Recently, I spoke with an attorney who is at a crossroads in his career. He was considering some strategies for growing his practice and wanted my opinion. Which strategy? What’s the best way to go about it? What other things could he do?

A few days later I heard from again. He decided he wasn’t going to do the one big thing he had been considering. In fact, he was thinking about retiring.

He had enough investments and income to do that but he wasn’t sure he was ready to walk away from a career that he identified with for so many years.

And he didn’t know what he would do with his time.

We talked about some of his options. I could see he was feeling pressured to make a decision but was worried about making a mistake.

I told him he didn’t need to decide immediately. I suggested he give a little time to several ideas and see how he felt about them.

He would have figured that out himself, but sometimes it helps to have someone talk you through it.

The next time you have a decision to make and you keep hearing those little nagging voices telling you what you “must” do, ask yourself what you would tell a client who came to you with that decision.

The odds are you’ll give yourself some good advice.

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Filed Under: Personal development Tagged With:

Are you worth $350 an hour?

May 23, 2019 by
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If you have clients who willingly pay the fees you charge, whether that’s hourly or flat fee or some other basis, it seems clear that you are worth what you charge, at least to those clients.

Ah, but I’m not asking if you’re charging more than you’re worth, in case that’s what you were thinking. I’m asking if you’re charging less than you’re worth, or, more accurately, less than the market will pay.

If you charge $350 per hour (or the equivalent), what if you could get as much work at $450 per hour? What would that do to your bottom line? Who says you couldn’t get $550 per hour?

C’mon, you know you’ve thought about this before?

When you set up shop, you looked at what other lawyers were charging and set your fees somewhere in the same neighborhood, right?

You have to stay competitive, right?

Then, when other attorneys raised their fees, you (eventually) raised yours.

Something like that?

Well, if “average” is okay with you, I understand why you would do this.

But what if you want to earn more than average? What if you’re worth more than the average?

There’s only one way to find out.

Increase your fees and see if the market will pay more.

You can do that with your existing clients. If you lose some, you might make up for that loss by the increased fees paid by the ones who stay, plus the higher fees paid by new clients.

If you lose 20% of your clients but you get 20% more from everyone else, you’re way ahead.

The other way to do it is to hold the line with existing clients (for now) and charge new clients the higher fee.

“What if clients won’t pay more?”

What if they will?

What if you don’t lose any clients?

What if you could increase your income by 30% with the stroke of a pen? What if you’ve been under-charging your clients for a long time?

Before you twist yourself into a knot agonizing over this decision, I have one more thought for you:

Raising your fees might actually help you attract more clients.

It’s true. There’s no competition at the top. The most expensive lawyers in town don’t usually have a shortage of clients.

Yes, there are other factors in play, but how much a lawyer is worth is subjective. If you charge more, in the eyes of many, you’re worth more.

Chew on that for awhile.

This may help you figure things out

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Fees and Billing

What are you excited about?

May 22, 2019 by
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My daughter is about to start a new job and move halfway across the country. My wife and I are excited for her and love hearing all the updates about the job, the move, and her new home.

We’re also excited because she’ll be living much closer to us.

It’s exciting to have something to be excited about.

Big or small, a new job or a new book to read, something that puts a smile on your face is a good thing.

So, what’s new and exciting in your life right now?

If you can’t think of anything, go get something.

Get a new client. Plan a vacation. Sign up for a cooking class or start outlining your novel.

Do something that makes you feel good when you think about it.

You know you’re got the right thing when you get busy with other things for an hour or two and then remember “it”.

Of course, it’s not the thing itself that gives you joy so much as the anticipation of it. Christmas morning is more exciting than the day after.

And, excitement is contagious. When you’re excited about something, the people around you pick up on the feeling. They like being around you.

Being happy is good for business. So go buy something that makes you happy. You can probably write it off.

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Filed Under: Personal development

Some attorneys shouldn’t be allowed to speak in public

May 21, 2019 by
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A developer wants to rezone a parcel of land just outside our gated community of single-family homes and turn it into high-density multi-family residential units.

Our homeowners association is up in arms about it and last night I went to a meeting.

The bottom line: nothing has happened yet and there’s nothing we can do yet, other than attend city council meetings and make ours views known.

In other words, something that could be communicated via email.

But don’t get me started on useless meetings. No, I want to talk about the speaker (an attorney) and offer a few comments about his presentation.

He began by telling us he was an attorney and said something about “land use” but didn’t explain that his firm was hired by our board and he was there to provide a report. I had to figure that out.

NB: Start by telling the audience why you’re there and what you’re going to talk about. (Or have someone introduce you.)

Over the next 35 minutes, he appeared to provide some information. I say “appeared” because he was very difficult to follow.

NB: Use an outline, with points and sub-points, or a timeline of events, or some other logical structure to your talk. Let the audience see where you’re going so they can go on the trip with you.

He droned. Long, run-on sentences, three words when one would do, lots of conditional statements. He didn’t talk to the audience, he talked at us. When someone rudely and angrily interrupted him, he was ruder and angrier.

NB: Speak like a human being. A little charm, a little animation, a story or two. Take a breath now and then. Engage the audience. Be nice to the audience, especially when they’re paying you.

Well, that’s my report. Meeting adjourned.

Here’s how to get lawyers to send you referrals

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Filed Under: Presentations
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