Law Practice Management Archives

17 05, 2016

How to Turn Clients Away Without Creating Offense

2019-03-20T21:27:30+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|2 Comments

Turn clients away without creating offense I’ve written about warning signs that a potential new client may be a train wreck waiting to happen to your law practice. If you pay attention to such warnings, then you may find yourself wondering just how to turn clients away without creating offense. That’s just what one of my clients struggled with recently. Here are my thoughts and thoughts from other attorneys, too.

How NOT to Turn Clients Away

Attorneys have a variety of ways that they handle potentially undesirable clients. Here are 3 methods that I do NOT recommend using to decline the representation. […]

15 04, 2016

Lists Improve Lawyer Time Management

2019-03-20T21:29:08+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Lists Improve Lawyer Time Management

Attorneys use lists to improve lawyer time management

“Duh! Tell me something I don’t already know,” you might have said to yourself when you read this headline about lawyer time management. I’m sure you already have some kind of list on your desk, on your computer, or on your mobile device right now. And yet, I frequently find myself coaching lawyers about creating and reviewing lists to improve lawyer time management and reduce the overwhelm of modern law practice.

There are many different kinds of lists with different functions and different ways to manage them. This post will include a “list of lists” and a brief description of their benefits or functionality. Check out David Allen’s, best-selling book Getting Things Done and his website of the same name for more elaboration on some of these ideas. I also invite you to share your suggested additions to this list in the comments below. […]

5 05, 2015

Where Can I Find a Virtual Paralegal to Match My Practice?

2019-03-20T21:29:49+00:00By Cathy L Ribble ACP|2 Comments

“There just are not enough hours in the day to do everything myself! I want to improve my work-life balance by delegating tasks, but no one is available. I keep reading and hearing about virtual paralegals and virtual assistants as affordable options, but I wonder: Where can I find virtual support which meets the needs of my law practice?”

Solo and small firm attorneys often share these same thoughts. For both groups, virtual paralegal or virtual assistant support is often the perfect solution provided you find the assistant who matches your needs. The first step is deciding what task(s) you want to delegate. That list will grow quickly if you could find the right person. Your next move will be checking out the following sources to identify the names of virtual paralegals or virtual assistants who have experience in your practice area. […]

2 12, 2014

Overcome Bad Habit Loops

2019-02-21T23:25:14+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Overcome Bad Habit Loops

This year is almost over. As you think about next year, do you have things you want to do differently? Have you started contemplating your New Year’s Resolutions yet? Do you notice some of the same items on your list that you had last year? Perhaps you are a victim of “the power of habit.”

New York Times business reporter, Charles Duhigg, published an excellent book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business in 2012. He summarized research by neuroscientists on habits and provided illuminating case studies of how people and companies broke bad habits and transformed their futures. Using the research and principles Duhigg described, I’ll provide some guidance on how you can look at the patterns in your life to design structures for better habits in the future. […]

7 10, 2014

Who Will Pinch-Hit for an Injured Solo?

2019-03-20T21:31:45+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Who Will Pinch-Hit for an Injured Solo?

A lawyer client recently posed a question to me about obtaining professional liability insurance. She practiced in a larger firm, and now she wants to start her own solo practice. Solos face some unique issues in obtaining insurance and making disaster contingency plans. Some legal malpractice carriers require a solo to designate a back-up attorney who will step in for her if she is incapacitated due to illness, injury, or even death. How does a solo find a lawyer willing to do that? Here are some of my suggestions:

Perhaps you have a colleague with a similar practice in a solo or small firm. They need lawyers available to cover for them, too. By making a reciprocal arrangement, you may be able to persuade a lawyer to take on that daunting responsibility.

If you don’t know someone who would be a good fit, however, it’s time to develop some additional relationships. How could you go about that? […]

6 05, 2014

Six Essential Traits of the Successful Legal Entrepreneur

2019-02-21T23:25:21+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Six Essential Traits of the Successful Legal Entrepreneur

Sometimes lawyers get so focused on honing their legal skills that they don’t recognize themselves as entrepreneurs. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.”

Very few law schools have classes that actually teach a lawyer how to run a law practice. How can you know whether you will be any good at it? What if you aren’t graduating in the top 10% of your class? Does that mean you have limited potential for successfully running your own law firm?

Inc. magazine online shared advice from Steve Blank about entrepreneurism in a commencement speech to engineering students. It’s good advice for lawyers, too. He said:

“[G]reat grades and successful entrepreneurs have at best a zero correlation….You don’t get grades for resiliency, curiosity, agility, resourcefulness, pattern recognition and tenacity. You just get successful.”

In this post, I want to talk about why those qualities are essential for a successful legal practice. […]

19 11, 2013

Security in the Cloud: How to Protect Your Law Practice Business Data

2019-02-20T00:07:22+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Security in the Cloud: How to Protect Your Law Practice Business Data

Security in the Cloud: How to Protect Your Law Practice Business Data

Cloud this, cloud that—no doubt you’ve been inundated with the tech industry’s message that the cloud is where it’s at these days. Just under 90 percent of small businesses use cloud-based services to store, share and back up data, according to a recent survey by Rackspace Hosting, Manchester Business School and Vanson Bourne. Cloud everything has become increasingly popular with any business, especially for Law firms that can’t afford a basement full of servers or finds an IT department impractical for other reasons.

But how secure is the cloud? Security levels vary from one provider to the next, but one thing most decision-makers may not know is how much control they do have over their own cloud security. […]

8 10, 2013

Build Your Law Practice: Become a Network Resource Hub

2019-02-21T23:25:26+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Build Your Law Practice: Become a Network Resource Hub

Suzanne Meehle wrote a nice post called With a Little Help from My Friends about the value to a lawyer of network development, whether inside or outside your organization. A network of co-workers, friends and acquaintances can help you build your law practice and be the best lawyer you can be. Here are some things a good network can do for you:

1. Refer business to you;
2. Answer legal questions outside your area of expertise;
3. Act as a sounding board as you puzzle out a tough legal issue;
4. Share tips and methods for effectively running your law practice;
5. Save you from reinventing the wheel by sharing a starting form for a document you need to draft;
6. Take care of your good clients on matters you don’t usually handle;
7. Cover for you when a vacation or emergency takes you away from the office;
8. Make recommendations about vendors, software or technology they have found reliable; and
9. Introduce you to speaking, writing or leadership opportunities that will get your name out there. […]

11 09, 2013

Finding Work: 8 Reasons for and 4 Warnings about using LinkedIn

2019-03-20T21:40:19+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Finding Work: 8 Reasons for and 4 Warnings about using LinkedIn

“Why would I want a LinkedIn profile? I keep up with my friends and connections on Facebook.” That’s what young lawyers looking for work often say when I ask them about networking and how they use LinkedIn. Older lawyers often view any kind of social media as a waste of time. Whether “looking for work” means job-hunting or client development, LinkedIn can be a useful tool. Here are 8 reasons why.

1. Professional Focus

LinkedIn focuses primarily on business connections by highlighting companies and their employees and former employees. Although LinkedIn has a collaborative culture like most other social media, it provides a forum to strut your stuff tastefully, because participants tacitly acknowledge its self-promotional and business networking purpose. Clients, recruiters, and employers come to LinkedIn looking for what you have to offer. Journalists also peruse LinkedIn for knowledgeable people to interview about newsworthy topics. […]

29 08, 2013

How Do I Decide Where to Locate My Law Office? Part 4

2019-03-20T21:43:51+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on How Do I Decide Where to Locate My Law Office? Part 4

The 4 part series, How Do I Decide where to Locate My Law Office, winds up today. We’ve pursued the different types of law office arrangements and have been looking at the relative geographics. I hope that these articles help move you forward in the decision process.

Small Town or Big City

With emerging technologies, lawyers do have a lot more flexibility in office placement. If you have a good internet connection and adequate broadband capacity, you might be able to practice almost as easily in the suburbs or in a small town as in a big city. Here are a few reasons you might choose to practice in a small town.

Usually the number of attorneys per capita will be significantly lower there, and the cost of living is lower, too. Lawyers I know in smaller towns describe a collegiality in the legal community that, sadly, seems to have largely vanished from the bigger cities. Many also report that experienced lawyers and judges took them under their wing to mentor them as they got started. With most law schools failing so miserably at actually teaching lawyers how to practice law, the opportunity to develop such relationships can be a significant benefit to someone setting up a practice straight out of school.

On the other hand, sometimes less populated communities can be rather closed to strangers. It may be important to have some family connections or a well-established sponsor there to open doors for you. […]

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How NOT to Turn Clients Away

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