13 12, 2011

To Do or Not To Do

2019-06-25T16:27:18+00:00By |Comments Off on To Do or Not To Do

The season is upon us! You know — the season of fa-la-la-la-la, holiday decorations, greeting cards, family parties, gift buying, travel plans, winter snow storms, and year-end business.  The list goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on….too much to do and not enough time.  If you make it to January 1, then your knee deep in a different set of tasks headed into tax season.

So what is a smart attorney or paralegal to do?  Organization is key, but who has time – or money — right now to implement complicated practice management software?

SOLUTION:  Pick one of these quick, easy and inexpensive online task management solutions.  Register for a free user name and pick a password.  Then start listing everything congesting your over-crowded mind.  Start with just the basics by listing the task and assigning a deadline.   That’s it!!  You can expand your vision and develop a more-rounded solution when the time crunch has eased.

29 11, 2011

Introducing Guest Blogger Cathy Ribble – “Virtual Paralegal Partnerships: What Solo Attorneys Need to Know”

2019-04-01T21:26:16+00:00By |Comments Off on Introducing Guest Blogger Cathy Ribble – “Virtual Paralegal Partnerships: What Solo Attorneys Need to Know”

Cathy L. Ribble is a senior level litigation paralegal who decided in 2009 to offer virtual services to U.S.-licensed attorneys when she founded Digital Paralegal Services. She is certified by the National Association of Legal Assistants as an Advanced Certified Paralegal in the area of Trial Practice. She matches attorneys looking for virtual paralegal support with NALA-certified paralegals by practice area and geographic location.

Cathy contributed to NALA’s 2010 Career Chronicle with her article Could You Be One? Virtual Paralegals. She has been featured in Texas Far Journal’s Testing the Waters: Is It Time to Try a Virtual Legal Assistant? Paralegal Today’s Freelance Freedom, Carolina Paralegal News Virtual Paralegals Becoming More Common as Profession Grows, Practical Paralegalism’s Top 50 Twitter Feeds for Paralegals, ParalegalGateway’s Toolbar for Paralegals under Paralegal Tweeps and Paralegal Blogs, and The Paralegal Mentor’s Virtual Paralegal Interview Series.

Solo attorneys throughout the United States are hearing the terms virtual paralegal and virtual legal assistant for the first time.  Today’s economy and the desire to keep a home-office practice are leading many solo attorneys to seek more information about virtual support.  […]

8 11, 2011

Don’t Negotiate Like a Politician

2019-03-21T19:06:24+00:00By |Comments Off on Don’t Negotiate Like a Politician

Who knew that lawyers could find good advice about negotiating on behalf of their clients in The Costco Connection? In her article titled Attitude Shift, Rhonda Abrams warns business owners not to negotiate like today’s polarized and ineffective politicians. “Stop thinking of the other side as your opponent,” she advises.

When it comes to negotiation, clients often say that they want a tough lawyer. What they really want is a solution to their problem or the healing of an injury. Their strategy for obtaining that may involve hiring a tough lawyer. […]

25 10, 2011

10 Tips for Mentoring a Young Lawyer

2019-04-01T21:27:42+00:00By |Comments Off on 10 Tips for Mentoring a Young Lawyer

According to the PricewaterhouseCoopers report in its 14th Annual Global CEO Survey, 98% of Millennial workers believe that working with a coach or mentor is important to their development. More would choose training and development as a benefit than a cash bonus. When I shared information about this survey on Twitter, Jasmine Decarie, Director of Marketing & Business Development at Foley Hoag, wisely pointed out that law firms need to train mentors on mentoring.

Jasmine’s admonition brought me back to my official mentor in BigLaw. He was a kindly gray-haired gentleman in the trial department. Although all first-years were on General Assignment in those days, I wondered why I received a trial lawyer as a mentor, when I wanted to do corporate work. […]

7 10, 2011

The Proper Care and Feeding of Referral Sources

2019-04-01T21:28:36+00:00By |1 Comment

Because I work with a lot of different lawyers, people often contact me when they need to engage one.  Sometimes a friend needs legal services, and I hear from them later about their satisfaction level with the services received. Often, however, a friend calls on behalf of the potential client.  I give them contact info for a couple of appropriate lawyers, which they forward to the client. Usually I give the lawyers I recommend a heads up by email or voicemail…and that’s the last I hear of it.

Over the course of a couple of years, I referred 5 or 6 potential clients to one lawyer. I never even heard whether she got hired. When a new referral request came in, I had a little conversation in my head: “I wonder whether the previous referrals were good matches for her. In any event, she didn’t seem to particularly appreciate them. She never let me know what happened. Did she even say ‘thank you’? I think I’ll send this referral to someone else who will appreciate it.” […]

31 08, 2011

How Lawyers Can Handle Bad Reviews and Complaints on Social Media

2019-03-21T19:12:02+00:00By |7 Comments

When I spoke recently at the State Bar of Texas annual meeting about social media success stories for lawyers, I got a familiar question: “What should I do if someone trashes me online in social media?”

Almost every lawyer has experienced a client with unreasonable expectations, or one who got bad results because of their own bad behavior or bad facts. I can’t even count how many different people over the years that I have heard claim that they got cheated in their divorce settlement because their lawyer was in cahoots with the other side. (None of them told a credible story.) The difference today is that they can widely publicize their opinions and dissatisfaction online. I have been taken aback by the vituperative language used in anonymous comments to blogs and news posts. Given these common occurrences today, there is a definite risk that someday you will face an unfavorable rating or an untrue statement about your services online.

Some attorneys cite fear of negative comments as a reason for eschewing social media altogether. They are uniformed, however. Ratings and comments can be posted about your legal services on many sites whether you engage social media or not. If you don’t play, you won’t know what they say. […]

12 07, 2011

Is the Grass Really Greener at Another Law Firm?

2019-03-21T19:20:46+00:00By |Comments Off on Is the Grass Really Greener at Another Law Firm?

According to Linda Katz, a legal recruiter with Pye Legal Group in Houston, law firms have resumed associate lateral hiring following the recession drought. “Lawyers with three to five years of experience are in the greatest demand, although not all practice areas have bounced back yet,” says Katz.

If you are dissatisfied with your current law firm, what kind of information should you gather about a prospective new employer besides the obvious issues of compensation and billable hour requirements? After brainstorming with Katz, I compiled some suggestions. […]

30 06, 2011

Think You’re Underpaid? Get Real Before You Leap

2019-03-21T19:24:39+00:00By |Comments Off on Think You’re Underpaid? Get Real Before You Leap

An in-house lawyer (let’s call her Sara) contacted me about helping her design a business plan for starting up her own law firm. I commended Sara’s wisdom in creating a business plan before leaving her corporate job. Surprisingly few lawyers actually do that. She explained that she needed the business plan in order to get a bank to lend her operating capital. While I silently questioned how realistic her expectations were, I asked how much she intended to borrow. She said, “I only need enough to cover my living expenses for a couple of months. Just until the money starts coming in.” […]

3 06, 2011

Leveraging Dictation Technology to Save Time and Overhead

2019-03-21T19:30:36+00:00By |2 Comments

Lawyers used to dictate drafts of correspondence and documents for their assistant to transcribe, in order to improve their efficiency over handwritten drafting. As word processing software became more user-friendly, however, lawyers began doing more and more of their own typing. Most found it easier to draft when they could immediately see and edit their work product. Today both solos and big firms save on overhead by using fewer, and sometimes less skilled, administrative assistants, which increases the need for lawyers to type more.

Some of those cost savings may be illusory, however. […]

 

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