21 08, 2025

Avoid Hiring Mistakes

2025-08-21T18:32:56+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Avoid Hiring Mistakes

Best Practices to Avoid Hiring Mistakes

By Debra L. Bruce

A framed sign reading “Job Opening – Apply Within” sits among law books, a judge’s gavel, and pens—symbolizing a legal job opportunity and the importance of thoughtful hiring. Job Opening – Apply Within Hiring the right candidate is crucial to maintaining professionalism, productivity, and harmony in your law office. Image created with Microsoft Copilot.

Do you dread the hiring process because it is so difficult to find the right people? Perhaps new hires have repeatedly disappointed you. They turn out not to have the skills or experience you expected or that they claimed to have. Perhaps co-worker drama seems to ferment around your new hire or communication breakdowns negatively affect work product and deadlines. Most law firms can tell tales of hiring mistakes that cost the firm time, money, and office harmony. This article provides tips on how law firms and law departments can make better hiring decisions.

1. Define in detail the skills and behaviors required for the role.

Do not let yourself off easy with a broad description like “litigation associate with 5 to 7 years of experience.” Invest time in identifying your expectations of what the new hire will be able to handle competently on Day 1 and what other talents and skills will be crucial to the new hire’s success at the firm. Also, do not shy away from posting the aspects of the job that you would personally find boring or tedious if it is an essential aspect of the job. By way of example, which of these capabilities will the candidate need?

Manage all aspects of a case from start to finish
Conduct the same routine depositions and motions in case after case without losing focus and engagement
Envision the timeline of a case and plot deadlines and critical […]

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. […]

6 08, 2013

How Your Daily Routine Can Help Keep Your Law Practice Cutting Edge

2019-03-08T00:13:31+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on How Your Daily Routine Can Help Keep Your Law Practice Cutting Edge

Introducing guest blogger – Chelsea Wilson

Chelsea Wilson is the Community Relations Manager for Washington University School of Law’s online LL.M. degree program, @WashULaw, which provides foreign trained attorneys with the opportunity to earn a Masters in Law degree from a top-tier American university from anywhere in the world. Join the @WashULaw Community on Twitter.

Are you an attorney that has trouble managing time? If not, do you know someone who does? This post is for attorneys or people you may know who struggle to fit everything—online marketing channels, pursuing bar association activities, reading legal books, and participation in other professional and business development strategies—into their day. […]

9 07, 2013

How Legal Management Software Can Make Your Firm More Efficient

2019-02-26T19:32:30+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on How Legal Management Software Can Make Your Firm More Efficient

Introducing Guest Blogger Paul Simms –

Paul Simms is Sales & Marketing Director for Reflect Digital, a digital marketing agency based in the UK, who specialise in design, development and marketing for legal websites.

In the past, lawyers and solicitors relied heavily on paper-based systems, and whilst many professionals coped dealing with their workloads in this manner just fine, few would argue against the contention that computer based systems such as legal case management software have made life easier for all concerned. When a law professional has so many clients to bill, it can be a tough juggling act working out just how much time has been spent on a case and what to charge. Law firm software is designed to put an end to all that, providing enhanced levels of efficiency and accuracy. […]

6 03, 2013

How to Properly Shorten Client Meetings That Drag On

2019-03-11T21:19:59+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|2 Comments

In my last post, I wrote about how to recognize bad clients before you make the mistake of taking on the representation. Among the responses I received, there was a request to discuss how to deal with basically good clients with a few unappealing behaviors. These are clients you want to keep, but you just wish that it was a little easier to deal with them in some respect. In this post I’ll make some suggestions on how to wrap up meetings with clients who take up too much of your time. […]

23 02, 2012

Are Lawyers Acting Like Elderly Aunts?

2019-04-01T21:04:48+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|Comments Off on Are Lawyers Acting Like Elderly Aunts?

A few months ago my 81 year old aunt asked me to help her with emails on her laptop. She had finally succumbed to years of pressure from family members to get a computer. Now she could be included more in the family conversations and picture swapping. She could easily keep in touch with loved ones across the country. But she still wasn’t using her laptop.

When I sat down with her, I discovered two main problems. First, she didn’t really understand some very basic concepts, like how the mouse worked. She had trouble remembering that she needed to point and click. Second, the interface was unfriendly to an elderly person. She couldn’t keep up with where the mouse pointed, and kept losing the cursor when it zipped across the screen. With a few adjustments, I slowed down the reactivity of her mouse and made the cursor bigger and bolder so her old eyes could keep up with it. Then I “co-piloted” with her as she sent some emails, gently reminding her what to do, until she had enough practice to fly on her own. […]

29 11, 2011

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

2019-04-01T21:26:16+00:00By Cathy L Ribble ACP|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. […]

6 04, 2011

Choosing Law Practice Management Software

2019-03-21T19:59:33+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|7 Comments

In a previous post (Should A Solo Buy Law Practice Management Software?) I discussed some benefits and drawbacks of investing in law practice management software. I shared my opinion that all lawyers, including solos, can benefit from practice management software because, properly used, it will significantly improve your efficiency and organization. I also warned, however, that the learning curve will first slow you down. You will probably incur additional costs for training and for consulting to get the program configured to fit your needs and to coordinate with your other software and hardware.

Now that you are considering whether to take the leap, this post will address some of the questions you may have, and point out others that you should investigate in your decision process. […]

15 03, 2011

Should A Solo Buy Law Practice Management Software?

2019-03-21T20:06:29+00:00By Debra L. Bruce, JD, PCC.|3 Comments

When a client calls unexpectedly about his matter, do you fumble to find the information you need, while the client wonders why you can’t answer the question? Do you have trouble sorting through all the appointments and deadlines on your calendar to identify the ones that relate to a particular case? Do you rely on your increasingly overloaded memory bank for conflict checks? Do you waste time locating old emails or pink message slips? Do you lose money because you can’t remember how much time you spent on a dozen different phone calls during the day? Do you ever wish you had access to something on your desk while out of the office? Have you lost hope of ever getting organized? […]

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Best Practices to Avoid Hiring Mistakes

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