2012 Legal Industry Predictions: Bob Denney’s Annual Trend Report

November 30, 2011 by
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legal industry tends and predictionsWhat’s hot right now in the legal industry and what trends can we expect to play out in 2012? For 23 years, Bob Denney has made that call in his report, “What Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession.” Here in its entirety is his latest report.

This is our 23rd annual report on what’s going on in the legal profession, not only in the United States but also in other parts of the world. Like all our previous reports it is based on information we compile throughout the year from many sources, including discussions with leaders in the profession. As always, some of our findings are obvious but they still must be included. Others are surprising and some are contrary to the Conventional Wisdom. Nevertheless, this is the picture at the beginning of 2012, a year which may well hold both economic and political surprises.

PRACTICE AREAS

RED HOT:

  • Banking. Perhaps the hottest area in Financial Services due to uncertainty if the “Volker Rule” will be implemented this coming July when regulations that are part of Dodd-Frank take effect.
  • Health care. A broad area that includes regulatory, finance, M&A, real estate, labor & employment and professional liability. Regulatory may become red, red hot. The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, expected by June 30, will be a legal, as well as political, flashpoint.
  • Energy. Oil, coal and gas in certain parts of the U.S. as well as Canada. Regulatory, land use and litigation are particularly hot in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania because of Marcellus Shale. Nuclear power is getting hot due to safety concerns in the U.S. but alternate energy may be cooling somewhat.
  • Intellectual property. Due to patent reform (“First-to-file”) but mostly for start-ups and smaller companies since large companies were already on a FTF system because of their global operations. Patent Litigation is becoming red hot for most firms while rate-sensitive patent prosecution work is being reduced and even eliminated in larger firms.

HOT:

  • White collar crime. Internal investigations due to fraud continue to increase. Adding fuel to the fire are new issues relating to the disclosure of inside information on social media.
  • Regulatory. Many states are passing laws in opposition to federal regulations, particularly in health care, energy, banking and environmental. Constitutional issues are beginning to arise.
  • Financial services. Mergers and acquisitions. Venture capital. Private equity. As a result, IPOs are really red hot right now—since about 200 companies have filed this year, the largest backlog in more than a decade. However, some experts say new issues will cool down in 2012.
  • Cyber crime. Due to growing hacking and security issues at computer networks.
  • Labor and employment. On both the labor and management sides. Violations of wage-and-hour laws are increasing. Collective bargaining is a hot issue. Right-to-Work is heating up. Some L&E departments have added immigration lawyers.
  • Commercial litigation. In addition to patents and white collar crime, regulatory, insurance, health care and retail/wholesale cases are hot. Some experts and GCs report a big increase in “bread-and-butter” cases—some call it “law factory work”—and a steady decline in “bet the farm” cases. The decline in cases going to trial continues, resulting in more Alternative Dispute Resolution. Also see “Online ADR” under “Other Trends and Issues,” below.
  • Immigration. With some exceptions, BigLaw and even MidLaw firms leave this to firms that specialize in it.

GETTING HOT:

  • Commercial real estate. Some investors are buying individual loans and real estate owned (REO) properties taken back by the lender after foreclosure. Others are buying or building multi-family residences to capitalize on the booming rental market.

GEOGRAPHIC MARKETS

  • Washington, DC. “The British are coming! The British are coming!” Four and perhaps all of the U.K.’s top five firms – the so-called “Magic Circle” – are opening offices here in an attempt to build U.S.-based regulatory practices. This is part of their broader strategy to enter the U.S. market in a big way.
  • Texas, particularly Houston. The British aren’t coming – at least not yet – but the energy business continues to attract more U.S. firms to open offices here.
  • BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China). As we stated in last year’s report, they continue to be regarded by global firms as major growth opportunities. But see “Challenges to Globalization” under “Other Trends and Issues” below.

MARKETING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

HOT:

  • Social media. Hotter than ever. As Deborah McMurray pointed out in her recent blog, it “is driving business and influencing it.” Legal marketing expert Larry Bodine sees huge potential for Google+ in marketing. However, some firms are starting to encourage more in-person relationship building instead. Also more firms continue to develop social media polices to prevent ethical as well as legal violations.
  • Experience databases and KM. Also hotter than ever. This is why Content Pilot, McMurray’s strategy and technology company, developed Velocity, a mobile app to quickly provide information on a firm’s experience and expertise.
  • RFPs. In the words of one CMO, “They are pouring in to big firms.” As a result, proposal automation apps that automate the RFP process continue to be hot.

GETTING HOT:

  • Educational online video. In his post on Attorney at Work, Bob Weiss says these are an excellent opportunity to build a practice.
  • Return on investment. Firms are paying increasing attention to this. One example: Susan Greene, Marketing Director at Becker & Poliakoff, constantly evaluates goals and spending to measure the marketing ROI.
  • Recruiting and marketing. Recognizing the relationship of the two functions, Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff has elevated CMO Jeanne Hammerstrom to be in charge of recruiting as well.
  • Client interviews and audits. More firms are recognizing, however slowly, that the feedback and information obtained from them—particularly when they are conducted by knowledgeable outside consultants—are critical in strategic planning and development of growth strategies.

OTHER TRENDS AND ISSUES

  • Firm management. As discussed in our November Legal Communique, in addition to DLA Piper’s bringing in an outsider to co-chair, some MidLaw firms are bringing in non-lawyer business professionals as advisors—an interesting and encouraging trend.
  • Revenues and profitability. According to various reports, since 2008 total revenues as well as revenues per lawyer (RPL) have been flat or even down for many firms in the AmLaw 100. This may be one reason for their reporting profits per partner (PPP) instead. Now CitiBank recently reported that revenues and profits will be down this year for a high percentage of AmLaw 200 firms. However, in most . . .
  • MidLaw firms revenues as well as RPL continue to increase and their PPP are on budget if not exceeding it. As we have been reporting, these firms are growing by attracting work from large clients who won’t pay BigLaw rates, even with AFAs.
  • Fewer partners. BigLaw firms in particular are promoting fewer associates to partner. They are also making the partnership track longer and the requirements tougher. Legal pundits say this is probably a permanent change that will continue even after the economy recovers.
  • Fewer entry level associates. Although summer associate hiring has generally increased for 2012, some BigLaw and also MidLaw firms plan to hire fewer first-year associates than they did before the recession. Instead, in addition to recruiting lateral partners, they are recruiting two- and three-year associates who don’t need several years of development before they are profitable. However, a few MidLaw firms report that, despite offering lower salaries, they are now able to attract high-quality 3Ls who would have gone to BigLaw firms in the past.
  • The new leverage. The age-old principle of leverage, a high ratio of associates to partners, is steadily dying out. As I discussed in the September/October 2011 issue of Law Practice, it is being replaced by a “New Leverage” based, not only on associates, but also on other forms of leverage—temporary or contract lawyers, paralegals, process management specialists and by the outsourcing of functions such as legal research, e-discovery and document management. This trend is not restricted to law firms. Many corporate legal departments, faced with senior management directives to reduce costs, are doing the same.
  • Non-lawyer competition and deregulation. A mid-year post on the Kowalski and Associates blog stated that “non-lawyers and corporate entities not owned by lawyers are actively delivering almost $2,500,000 in legal services through LPOs and Internet providers of legal services.” New model firms such as NovusLaw and Legal Zoom are just two examples. This trend is resulting in a groundswell of cries for deregulation. However, in a letter to the editor of the New York Times after it ran an op-ed supporting this trend, ABA President Bill Robinson, stated that “A rush to open the practice of law to unschooled, unregulated non-lawyers … would cause grave harm to clients.” Stay tuned. This battle over deregulating the practice of law will continue. The Jacoby & Meyers suits were just one example. Keep in mind that other professions, such as accounting, architecture and medicine, have already found answers to this issue.
  • Globalization. Continues but is getting more complex. In a recent Ark Report, Leigh Dance, President of ELD International, describes a “multi-polar world” in which a growing range of legal services must be delivered to multiple geographic markets. But she says there are alternatives to opening offices everywhere and also that emerging markets are growing faster than mature markets, i.e., the U.S. and Western Europe, and will continue to grow, particularly in Asia.
  • More on globalization. Global growth is not limited to BigLaw firms. Liaisons, affiliations and networks offer opportunities for MidLaw and even SmallLaw firms to grow internationally. Also the ABA Commission on Ethics 20/20 has posted draft proposals to make it easier for U.S. lawyers to engage in cross-border practice. But there are also . . .
  • Challenges to globalization. As reported by Anna Stolley Persky in the NovemberABA Journal, “U.S. law firms face an increasingly competitive—and often protectionist—legal environment when they seek to extend their operations overseas.” Some countries, such as Canada and potentially the U.K. and Australia, have few restrictions on foreign lawyers practicing. But others, including the BRIC countries, have significant restrictions. For U.S. firms there may also be another challenge to globalization which is …
  • Capital. Since growth requires capital and, except in Washington D.C., U.S. firms may not have outside investors, will even the largest firms have sufficient capital to fund global growth? Historically, compared to other businesses (yes, a law firm is a business!), law firms have needed relatively little working capital which, in most cases, they have been able to obtain through short-term line-of-credit loans or off-balance sheet leases. However, for BigLaw firms this may change in the future as a result of their emphasis on growth and the resulting need for capital. Adding to the pressure are the U.S. growth plans of U.K. firms, which now have access to outside capital as a result of the Legal Services Act. This issue of non-lawyers having ownership in U.S. law firms will continue to heat up.
  • Mergers. After declining in 2010, mergers have increased substantially as firms shift from a survival mode to a growth mode. Most legal experts expect this to continue. However, in the past as many as 50 percent of the mergers fail because, as I discussed in the October, 2011 issue of Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report, there are many challenges and adjustments that need to be made if a merger is to succeed.
  • Alternative fee arrangements. Lots of talk and some interesting action. Pfizer’s program with 17 selected firms is noteworthy, including its mandate that neither in-house nor outside lawyers are permitted to mention hours. But there is . . .
  • More on AFAs. According to Fulbright & Jaworski’s Annual Litigation Trends Report, “Despite the growing use of AFAs … more than half of the larger companies [surveyed] and about two-thirds of the mid-size companies estimate they use AFAs for less than 20 percent of outside legal spend.” Furthermore, according to many firm leaders, the benefits and workability of AFAs are being questioned by clients as well as by firms.
  • Client satisfaction. The Fulbright Report also said respondents’ satisfaction with how well outside counsel meet their litigation needs in four key areas was between 17 percent and 21 percent for U.S. companies but over 50 percent for U.K. companies. Furthermore, in all four areas, “the figures are lower than they were in last year’s survey.” In view of all the emphasis firms are supposedly placing on client service, these figures, particularly for U.S. firms, are alarming.
  • Legal project management. More firms continue to retain outside consultants to help design and install LPM programs to deliver more value to clients and more profit to the firm.
  • E-Discovery. It is now becoming a necessity in many smaller cases which could well add cost and complexity to litigation.
  • Online ADR. General Electric’s oil-and-gas division is testing online dispute resolution by requiring thousands of suppliers to agree to cyrbersettlements in simple disputes. Right now the approach is being tested mostly in Italy. It will be interesting to learn the results and if GE expands the approach to other countries including, of course, the U.S.
  • Law school admissions. Responding to a poll by Kaplan Test Prep, 37 percent of 128 law school admission officers said they looked up an applicant on Facebook or other social media sites, and 32 percent said they had found something online that hurt an applicant’s chances of admission.
  • Law school job placement statistics. Last year, Villanova Law School admitted inflating the figures in its reports of jobs obtained by graduates. Now Michigan’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School, the largest in the country, and New York Law School have been sued on behalf of students and graduates demanding tuition refunds “and other remedies” for inflating post-graduation legal employment and salary statistics. Are these the only schools guilty of this? The lawyer representing the plaintiffs says “… this problem is not just confined to those two schools.” This could become a disturbing trend.
  • Associate training. Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy is taking it to a new level. Harvard Law and Business School faculties, with assistance from firm partners, conduct a program for third- to seven-year associates. Subjects include business, finance, personal development and leadership.
  • Succession planning. Although a growing number of firms are addressing the issue, it is becoming even more of a challenge. Some older partners are not retiring because they need to continue working for obvious economic reasons.
  • Legal services corporation. A subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee has recommended a cut from the $404 million LSC received this year to $300 million in 2012. ABA President Robinson stated this is a “draconian cut” because one out of every two people seeking legal services is now turned away by LSC.
  • Medical-Legal partnerships. According to CNN Money, MLPs provide legal services to patients in 200 hospitals and clinics throughout the U.S. In what is considered a major commitment to expand free critical services to more patients, Wal-Mart’s legal department is now providing free legal services for patients at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital. This is described as the first such partnership between a large corporate legal department and a major hospital. In view of the situation at LSC, we hope this trend continues.
  • Mothers-in-the-Law. Since it was founded in Seattle in 2006 to address the home-work conflict that exists for mothers in law firms, the Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association (MAMA) has grown to more than 550 members in six cities. Another 25 chapters are now being developed.

There has been much talk about the “New Normal” in the legal profession. Yet some of these trends and issues, such as pressure to kill the billable hour and replace it with AFAs, are not new. Others, such as involving outsiders and non-lawyer businesspeople in firm management, are new. But, whether old or new, will they really become “normal?” That remains to be seen.

Bob Denney is President of Robert Denney Associates, Inc. He says “it seems like forever” that he has been providing counsel on management and growth strategy to firms throughout the United States and parts of Canada. The complete annual “What’s Hot and What’s Not in the Legal Profession” is available as a download on his firm’s website, www.robertdenney.com. Contact Bob atbob@robertdenney.com if you’d like to be added to his mailing list and receive quarterly trends updates.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Legal industry, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Do you have too many clients?

November 8, 2011 by
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Attorneys with too many clients to serveMost attorneys say they want to get more clients but if they’re not ready for more clients, it can actually cost them.

If you can’t serve your clients, they aren’t going to stay. You must have the staff and other resources in place to do the legal work and support functions or new clients will leave as quickly as they came.

What about “one time” clients? You’re going to handle their divorce or bankruptcy or injury claim, do their estate plan or handle their closing, and you’ll probably never see them again. Can you have too many of them?

Yes. These clients may not themselves return but if you treat them well, they can and will send you referrals. If you don’t, not only will they not send you new business, they’ll tell everyone they know that you are sloppy or slow and did not do a good job for them.

Taking on too many clients is especially a problem for firms that grow quickly. Legal services do not scale in the same way selling widgets does. We are in a personal service business and we need people to provide that service. It takes time to find the right people, hire and train them. Unbridled growth can cause serious financial problems, inordinate stress, and an increased risk of malpractice for the firm that is unprepared.

Rapid law firm growth is not uncommon. A dramatic upsurge in “intakes” can occur for a variety of reasons. Every firm needs to have a plan in place now, before that growth occurs.

If your practice tripled in the next 90 days, where will you go to find the personnel, the technology, and the other resources you need to accommodate that growth?

Will you partner with another firm? Turn away the smaller business to handle the bigger cases or clients? Will you hire a head hunting firm or consultant?

Start thinking about these things right now, and not just because you need to be prepared. Think about these things because in doing so, you will send a message to your subconscious mind that you are ready for and expecting that growth. You will then start seeing things you need to see and attracting the information and the contacts you need to make that growth a reality.

Too many clients? A nice problem when you’re ready for it.

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Filed Under: Client relations, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing Plan, Productivity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cutting costs can increase net income but it can also put you out of business

October 27, 2011 by
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cost-cutting-for-attorneys-law-firmsWhen attorneys are getting fewer clients and their income is waning, it’s only logical to look at cutting expenses. After all, every dollar you don’t spend on overhead is a dollar more in net income.

There are a lot of ways to reduce overhead. Go through your ledger (or bank and credit card statements) and I’m sure you’ll find many small items that can be reduced or eliminated. or a month expenses may not jump out at you, but when you add them up, you may find yourself spending thousands of dollars you don’t have to.

Also look at big items. Can you move to a smaller office? Can you work from home and use another attorney’s office to see clients? Can you get by with a less expensive car?

There’s one category of expense that you should not cut. In fact, when times are tough, it’s the one expense you should look at increasing. When times are tough you should spend more on marketing.

Attorney Philip Franckel explains why on his blog:

Reducing your advertising and marketing budget will cause your law firm. . . to fall further behind and allow your competitors to gain a substantial advantage. When revenues increases, you will have to start all over again. Additionally, all previous work and investment in branding will have been for nothing. In a bad economy, this is preciously the time to take advantage of lower marketing costs.

I agree completely. Think about it, the business is out there, at least enough business for YOU. If they aren’t finding you now, what makes you think they will find you later? You’ve got to help them find you. So when business is down, you must increase your marketing, not cut it.

Franckel also commented on another attorney who boasted that his firm had cut expenses by eliminating advertising contracts in favor of “variable” marketing expenses, ostensibly allowing the firm to spend more when they can and less when they cannot. Franckel points out that this strategy will wind up costing the firm more, not less:

Fixing marketing costs can be a huge benefit. When entering into a large five figure advertising spend on TV, I committed to a 12 month budget to fix the cost of media. This allowed me to pay the same known cost for media every month. Otherwise, I would have faced huge increases, or have been forced to temporarily discontinue advertising, because of temporary changes in media demand such as elections.

I agree with this, too. In the past, when I was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on advertising, I saved as much as 70% and sometimes even more by locking in a yearly contract, versus what I would have paid “month to month”. (NB: I only agreed to the contracts, however, after testing the ads and the publications.)

Now, what about attorneys who don’t spend money on advertising or marketing? It may be time to consider it. You don’t have to start advertising if you’ve never done that before and don’t want to do it now. But how about improving your web site or joining a new networking group? How about doing a mailing to your former clients?

Note also that your time (spent marketing) is another expense. Don’t cut down on this, either.

When business is slow, yes, cut your overhead but don’t cut marketing. Investing more time and more dollars in growing your practice will always be the best way to increase your net income.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How to make your clients appreciate you more than they already do

October 24, 2011 by
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free and discount services for lawyersLast week my wife went to her dentist for a cleaning. The bill arrived with a charge of $84 for the cleaning and $45 for the exam. Then, the bill showed a $45 credit for the exam. In other words, the exam was free.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe because it was a brief exam or maybe he never charges for an exam that follows a cleaning. Whatever the reason, my wife and I were pleased. We like our dentist even more than we already did.

Now, what if he simply omitted the charge for the exam? Would that have had the same effect? I don’t think so. We wouldn’t know that he was “comping” the exam. If we had thought about it at all, we would have assumed the exam was included in the cleaning and not given it another thought.

When you do something nice for your clients, whether giving them a free service, a discount, or something extra, make sure they know about it. Put the charge on the statement and then show a credit for that charge, so the client can see the value of the service they received.

Do this for free consultations, too. Send a bill for the consultation, show a 100% credit, and a zero balance due.

Do you think your would-be clients will better appreciate the value of what you do if they see that the consultation they got free is worth $400?

You bet they will.

Something else. If you don’t have free or discounted services you occasionally give to clients and prospects, it’s time to start. One way to do that is to take something you regularly include as part of your services and “break it off” as a separate item.

For example, if you charge $1500 to prepare a living trust and this includes a pour over will, power of attorney, and living will at no charge, simply send an invoice that shows the ordinary charges for those additional documents and 100% credit.

If you want clients and prospects to appreciate you more, when you do something nice for them, make sure they know about it.

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Save time by not filing email; study proves search is quicker

October 13, 2011 by
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Filing emails in folders, or adding labels to them, doesn’t make them quicker to find. According to a study by IBM Research, it’s quicker to find them by searches.

“Finding emails by searches took on average 17 seconds, versus 58 seconds finding the emails by folder,” the researchers concluded. “The likelihood of success – that is, finding the intended email – was no greater when it had been filed in a folder.”

The time spent filing email, in addition to the added time spent retrieving it, can add 20 minutes a day to your workload, the study concluded. A comment to the article questions whether this is true under real world conditions:

In the majority of scenarios, searching is more efficient, however if you forget. . . the metadata [key words]. . . related to the email, then your search efforts are going to be quite difficult. On the other hand, if you remember that you simply filed the email under the “important” folder, then odds are you may only be a few clicks away. In a black and white world, yes searching is more efficient, however there are still valid purposes to using folders.

My plan to achieve email inbox zero calls for me to get rid of all but one label and rely on Gmail’s search capability. I’m pretty sure I won’t miss having more labels since I don’t use the 50 I currently have. But my view is colored by my use of Evernote to file important emails and to manage tasks and projects.

In Evernote, I tag everything (and sometimes also add key words to the body of the note). The difference though is that I don’t “file” all my email this way, just the actionable or otherwise important ones which constitute less than 5%.

I found most interesting the researchers conclusion that most people don’t file emails in folders to make it easier to find them so much as to remove from view the overwhelming volume of email. They pare down the inbox so that they can use it for task management, which the study implied was not efficient.

If they used Evernote like I do, they wouldn’t have to spend as much time filing all of their email in the right folders, they could simply send the important ones to Evernote and archive the rest.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity, Technology, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Evernote and my plan for achieving “Inbox Zero”

October 11, 2011 by
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I have tens of thousands of emails in my Gmail inbox. At last count, 16, 503 are unread. I have over 50 labels set up. I don’t use any of them. It’s a mess

When I first learned about Inbox Zero I swooned. The idea is intoxicating. When your inbox is empty, you are no longer overwhelmed by email. You are in control. You enjoy a Zen-like feeling of tranquility. You process your email inbox once or twice a day, keeping it at zero. You have a “mind like water”.

I loved the idea, but the thought of going through tens of thousands of emails was about as appealing as a state bar complaint.

Email has long been the final frontier in my productivity makeover. I’ve resisted changing for a long time. But now, I have a plan.

My plan involves my favorite productivity tool, Evernote, which I use for collecting information and managing my projects and tasks. I use it all day long, in every part of my work flow, as my tool for Getting Things Done. Read my previous posts on how I use Evernote for getting things done.

Right now, when I get an email that requires action of any kind (a reply, a call, review, read, etc.) or that is related to a project I’m working on, or is something I want to keep for reference purposes (receipts, newsletter ideas, research, documents, etc.), or something I am waiting for, I forward that email to Evernote. I then tag it and incorporate it into my gtd system.

If an email requires a reply that will take no more than two minutes, I do it. I may also send a bcc to Evernote.

Sometimes, I get emails requiring action that I don’t send to Evernote. An example is an email I got recently from someone I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. I didn’t want to dash off a quick reply, I wanted to give it some thought. In this case, I added a @Reply label and archived the email in Gmail. When I’m ready to reply, the label will help  me find it.

Yes, I could also send these to Evernote, but I like having the orignial email connected to my reply. And, if I do send it to Evernote, I want to do so after I’ve replied, so I have both the original email and my reply in one Evernote note.

So, here’s my plan for achieving email bliss using Evernote and Gmail:

First, when I have some quiet time, (this will probably require several sessions), I will go through my Gmail inbox, scanning (not reading) and quickly doing the following:

  1. Unsubscribing from newsletters I don’t read.
  2. Adding @Reply label to anything I need to reply to that will take more than two minutes but does not need to be tracked.
  3. Sending Action and Reference items to Evernote.
  4. Trashing or archiving everything else.

Once my email inbox is empty, as new emails come in, I will review and process them, as follows.

  • If it requires a response or action that will take two minutes or less, I will do it, then Archive it; if I want to, I can also send a bcc to my Evernote account.
  • If it will take more than two minutes but I don’t need to keep notes, add it to a project, or track it, I will label it @Reply and do it as soon as possible.
  • If I’m waiting for a reply or for something to occur, I will send it to Evernote (and add a @Waiting tag).
  • If it’s something I want to keep for reference, an important email, an exemple of a good sales letter, a receipt, or something I want to read later, I will send it to Evernote.
  • All other emails will go into Archive or get trashed. At day’s end, I will again have an empty Inbox and an empty mind.

The premise behind all of this is to identify emails that need action. That’s key. Everything else is reference and can be found through search.

Note, I will use just one label in Gmail, @Reply. I am open to adding others down the road, but only if they truly serve me. For example, I may find it easier to label emails @Read/Review in Gmail, rather than sending them to Evernote for that purpose. I may also add labels for specific projects, or use them temporarily (e.g., for promotions). But for now, one label will do.

Wish me luck. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Have you achieved “Inbox Zero”? What do you think of my plan?

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Email, Law office management, Productivity, Technology, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Attorneys: Will you be sending holiday greeting cards again this year? (Read this before you do)

October 3, 2011 by
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‘Tis the season. . .

Yep, the holidays are right around the corner. Will you be sending cards this year?

If you are, this excellent 13-step holiday greeting card guide for law firms will help you create a plan and a timetable.

You don’t want to wait until the last minute. Not with so many decisions to make. Remember last year? You spent way too much time looking through catalogs to find just the right card (mustn’t offend anyone) and then spent way too much money because you didn’t want your clients to think you couldn’t afford a nicer card. . .

I’d like to propose an alternative to this annual ritual of pain.

Don’t misunderstand me, I do recommend communicating with your clients and professional contacts and the holidays are an especially good time to do that. Communication is the sine qua non of relationship building, after all. What I don’t recommend is sending the same commercial greeting cards everyone else sends.

Why? Because a mass market, commercial greeting card that your client reads for three seconds before placing on the fireplace mantle sends an unwritten message:

We’re sending this to you because it is expected of us and we didn’t want to take a chance that you would notice if we didn’t. We couldn’t be bothered to put any thought into it, so we spent some money instead. We want to remind you that we still exist and we hope you will remember us if you need an attorney or know someone who does.”

Commercial holiday cards, the same cards sent by every insurance agent and dentist, are nothing more than advertising, and everyone knows it.

Look, you know these people and you do appreciate them, and they you. You helped them through a tough time or you helped them achieve something important. You met their family or their employees. You really do care about them as individuals, but your holiday card says they are just names on a mailing list.

So, what do I advise instead?

A letter. Send a personal letter to your clients that says what you really want to say.

Tell them what you would tell them if you were sitting with them in person.

Tell them that you appreciate knowing them and you are proud that you have been able to help them. Share news about what happened this year in your practice and personal life and your thoughts about next year. Share a story about a remarkable case, a client who opened a new business, or a new hire in your firm.

Write about the economy and offer solace and advice. Write about books that changed your thinking, and quotes that inspired you. And, because it’s a personal letter, you can write about your kids, your hobbies, or your vacation. Whatever you write about, make sure you tell your clients how grateful you are to know them and have them as clients.

When your clients receive these annual missives, they will read every word. They will tell their friends and families about their attorney’s letter. And because they know you didn’t have to do it, they will call you and send you emails thanking you for taking the time to write a personal message.

My wife and I have friends who send out a family newsletter every year. It’s written by the husband and reads like a newspaper, with headlines, photos with captions, and “news” stories. Very funny news stories. Humor is not easy to pull off, but my friend does it like a pro. My wife and I read it cover to cover, laughing all the way. Our friends moved to the Midwest a few years ago, so we don’t see them much (they visited recently) but their newsletter keeps us informed about what’s going on in their lives and makes us feel like we are still a part of it.

Send your clients and others you care about a year-end personal letter. If not a complete letter, at least add a note inside the card. If you really want to make an impact, add a personal, hand written P.S., something that lets your client know you know who they are.

You don’t need much, just something personal. “Tell Michael I wished him good luck in his soccer tournament!” will be appreciated and long remembered, and so will you.

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Filed Under: Communication, Law office management, Relationship marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What to give new clients when they sign up

September 14, 2011 by
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I hired an attorney recently. After I signed the retainer agreement, he gave me a copy of the agreement and my check. Nothing else. Nor has he sent me anything in the mail or email in the several weeks since.

No letters, no phone calls, no information.

It’s true, nothing has happened yet that would require an update. Nevertheless, not sending me anything or communicating with me in any way is a big mistake.

Attorneys need to give new clients as much information as possible, and stay in touch with them as often as possible:

  • To thank them for choosing you instead of any other lawyer
  • To educate them on what you will be doing and how the client can help you do a better job for them
  • To inoculate the client from doing or saying anything that could harm them
  • To clarify and commemorate what you told the client and what the client told you
  • To give them something to show their spouse or partner that explains what you are doing and why it is necessary
  • To show clients you are organized and experienced and that they can trust you to stay on top of their matter
  • To ensure the client knows what will be happening, and when, so they don’t expect too much, too soon
  • To let the client know that even though they haven’t heard from you, you are working on their case
  • To reduce the client’s anxiety–about their case and about working with a lawyer
  • To add value to the transaction and exceed the client’s expectations; to give them a “wow” experience
  • To clarify billing and payment requirements so there are no misunderstandings or unpleasant surprises
  • To set the stage for cross-sales and referrals by educating the client about other services your firm offers

Every law firm should send new clients home with as much information as possible. Create a simple “new client kit” and supplement this with regularly scheduled letters and phone calls. Let them know what you are doing for them, even if what you are doing is waiting for something from them or from another party.

Many attorneys do this but too many don’t. How about you? What do you send your new clients and how has this helped your practice?

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Filed Under: Client relations, Law office management, Referrals, Thank you letters Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Evernote helps lawyers get organized and get things done–Part 3

August 10, 2011 by
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In parts 1 and 2 of this series I talked about how I use Evernote for collecting and organizing information and for managing my tasks and projects. Today I want to show you the details of my set up and workflow.

Evernote allows you to organize notes in (up to 250) notebooks. Notebooks can also be arranged in “stacks” or sub-notebooks. While this does not provide a complete Windows Explorer-like hierarchal folder set-up (you can only go down one notebook level), it does provide a logical way to organize information. And by hiding sub-notebooks (click the arrow to the left) it makes the left navigation bar less cluttered.

In the beginning, I set up twenty or thirty notebooks. I had notebooks for different areas of my business and personal life, for projects, and to archive notes I probably wouldn’t need soon (i.e., finished projects, receipts, user manuals, etc.) After several months, I found some issues with this set up. For one thing, every time I “filed” a note I had to decide which notebook it belonged in. I have a lot of cross-over in my business and many notes could logically reside in more than one notebook. I had to take time to decide which notebook was best or defer the decision; either way it meant more work.

I could duplicate the note and put it in multiple notebooks. Also not good. If I ever changed or added to a note, I had to find and change the copies.

When you search for notes, you designate which notebook to search in. If you don’t remember, you have to search different notebooks, until you find it, or search all notebooks, and if I’m doing that, what’s the point of having separate notebooks?

Notebooks vs. Tags

I began reading other blogs, to see how others organized their notes. Many people use just a few notebooks and organize primarily using tags. Tags are notebook agnostic–they apply throughout your Evernote database. I’d been using tags since I first started with Evernote, but I didn’t have a system. That soon changed.

The lights went on for me when I read how some people used just one notebook. One notebook! They used tags and Evernote’s robust search function to quickly find things. I was sold. I eliminated all notebooks except two. First is my “Inbox,” my default notebook; everything goes in there first. I review my Inbox at least once a day, assign tags, decide if there’s anything else I need to do with the information, and move the notes to my primary notebook, which I’ve named “My Notes”.

This simplified approach makes my work flow much quicker and more intuitive. I could simplify it even further and use just one notebook, using a “inbox” tag to designate that a note has not yet been processed, but having the buffer of a separate Inbox notebook allows me to quickly upload notes without having to think about them and process them later.

Right now I also have two temporary notebooks. They are both “local” meaning they are not synced to the Evernote server (and I cannot, therefore, access them on the web or from my phone). The first is “Private” and includes passwords, log-ins, sensitive documents and the like. The notebook is temporary because I haven’t yet decided what to do with this information but with an eye towards simplicity, I am leaning towards merging it with all my other (synced) notes. I will probably use Evernote’s encryption function.

The other temporary notebook is named, “To be uploaded”. It is a repository for documents on my Windows hard drive, in queue to be uploaded to Evernote. There is a monthly upload limit (60 mb on the free account, 1 gb on premium) and I simply wait until the last couple of days my monthly cycle to see how much “room” remains in my monthly allotment, so I don’t exceed it. Once I’ve moved everything to Evernote, I won’t need this notebook any longer.

As for tags, Evernote allows you a maximum of 10,000, way more than anyone should need. I currently use less than 100, and, with searches and “saved searches,” another Evernote feature, I think I can get away with even fewer.

Like notebooks, tags can also be nested. Unlike notebooks, tags can be nested to as many levels as you want. You can create a true windows-like hierarchy, using tags like folders. Not only does that allow you to browse your notes, it makes for a very clean left navigation panel. I currently have only seven top level tags, as you can see in the screen shot below.

Getting Things Done with Evernote–My GTD Work Flow

As noted in my previous post, I manage my tasks and projects using David Allen’s “Getting Things Done(TM)” methodology, also known as “gtd”. If you aren’t familiar with gtd, I recommend you buy his book. You may not “get” everything the first time you read it (I didn’t), but with a little effort, I think you’ll find this to be the system that finally allows you to get organized and get things done.

I’ve set up Evernote with tags that allow me to utilize gtd. Below is a screen shot of my Windows desktop client, which I use about 95% of the time. (I occasionally use the web app and when I’m out, I use the iPhone app.)

I’m still tinkering with the names and nesting of my tags because as I use Evernote each day, I learn more about how I work best. Like you, I have different roles in life and many projects for each of those roles, as well as single “next actions” (as Allen describes them). So, by the time you read this, my tags may be different from what is now depicted, but the changes are likely cosmetic rather than functional. And yes, I know that some of what I do isn’t pure gtd.

My tag list shows the top level tags (think “parent”) and some nested ones (“children”). The “Projects” tag, for example, is used to organize “Active Projects” and “Inactive Projects” which are nested under them. Each of those tags has nested tags; to get to them, I click the arrow to the left of the parent tag.

The numbers to the right of the tag indicate how many notes have that tag. You’ll see I have 7 Active Projects and 17 Inactive Projects.

The !!Today tag is for tasks I want to do today, or as soon as possible. It is pre-pended with two exclamation marks to keep it at the top of the list. Below that is my !Next list; these are tasks I want to get to, well, next. As I complete today’s tasks, I find other tasks I want to move to the front of the line. I remove the !Next tag and replace it with !!Today.

I spend most of the day working in !!Today. That keeps me focused on doing what I’ve already determined I want to work on before I work on anything else. But I can also dip into other tags and find other tasks to do.

“Contexts” are preceded with the @ character, representing location or the tool (@Computer). Since I work from home, my context menu is pretty simple; you may have contexts for different locations and areas of your life: @work, @home, @calls, and others. The more I use gtd, the fewer contexts I’ve found necessary but they do come in handy when I want to, say, find tasks @computer, @15 Minutes, and tagged “personal,” or when I’m out and I need to find @Errands.

“Lists” are items I use regularly (e.g., my “weekly review checklist,” another gtd concept, or frequently referenced conference call numbers).

“Musing” is something I came up to tag things I’ve got floating around in my head that I need to think about. Once I’ve done that, they will be tagged !!Today or !Next or @Someday/Maybe, or they may be deleted altogether.

“Reference” is a catch all for all non-actionable items. It is my repository of notes and drafts and ideas, web clips and documents and everything else. I have nested tags in Reference for my two businesses, one for Personal, and a few other “top-level” tags. Each of these tags has tags nested within them. For example, for the attorney marketing business, I use a top level tag “am” and have nested tags for “am-blog,” “am-products,” “am-consulting,” and so on.

How I handle Projects

Each project has it’s own tag. I use a period in front of project tags to designate them as projects instead of single tasks. My project for setting up Evernote and my gtd work flow has the tag .Evernote/GTD. All notes related to that project get that tag. They will usually have other tags too, for context (@Computer, @Errand), Reference (e.,g. am-blog), and, if it’s actionable, !!Today or !Next. If I’m not sure if it’s necessary, I’ll use @Someday/Maybe.

Each project has a primary note tagged with “Active Projects” (if I’m working on it now) or “Inactive Projects” (to be done later). In this note are the objectives for the project and a checklist of tasks and/or “note links” to other Evernote notes. Thus, the main note becomes an index for the entire project with each task usually having it’s own note. That way, as tasks are done, they can be marked with a “Done” tag (or deleted) and the primary note can be updated to show that the task for that project has been done.

Evernote also has check boxes which can be used for checklists or for designating actionable tasks. Check boxes are also searchable, so you can find all tasks in Evernote that are done (checked) or not done.

Calendar: Appointments and Tasks (Ticklers)

I use Evernote to manage time-oriented tasks and projects by linking notes to my Google Calendar. (This may change once Evernote introduces a “Due Date” field which has been promised “soon”.) Each note in Evernote has a unique link. By right-clicking and copying that link, you can paste it into your calendar, either as an appointment (date and time) or as a task (“All day” event).

Every day I review my appointments and tasks, click the link and it opens the Evernote note I need for that appointment or task. (Actually, on gCal, the link isn’t currently clickable; I have to cut and paste the link into a browser window and that opens the note in the desktop app.) I also assign a “Tickler” tag to notes that have been tickled so I can browse those notes if I want to.

The Weekly Review

Every night, I go through Evernote and my calendar and decide what I want to work on the following day. Those tasks get tagged !!Today. Some days I get through the entire list, often I don’t. Tasks not done get carried forward to the following day or, if I decide there are other things I need to do first, I might remove !!Today and replace it with !Next.

I also do a weekly review, (Sunday mornings), to plan the following week. The daily and weekly review are key to making the gtd system work because you’re regularly looking at your lists and making decisions on what to do next.

As you can see, this is a very simple system. It works because it is simple and because I don’t keep anything in my head, everything’s in Evernote, which means I can focus on getting things done.

—

Read part 1 and part 2 of this series.

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