Much has been written about clients’ reactions to escalating legal costs, but what are the implications of a client challenging individual billing entries? It may not be about billing at all, but about how well your operating style aligns with your client’s.

Here are a few common billing challenges to set the stage. … Read The Rest

Athletes often discuss the fact that each time they advance to the next level the game “speeds up.” The leap from high school to college ball is a significant one. Players are bigger, faster and stronger, and the game moves at a more rapid pace. College to pro is even more drastic, as things move at dizzying speeds.

You’ve just turned pro. While there were smart, insightful people in your law school class, you’re now participating on a professional playing field at an entirely different level. … Read The Rest

On Sept. 1, 1994, a man named Marc Duke started The Original Pet Drink Co. in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His vision? Provide flavored bottled water for pets, free of the chemicals found in tap water and fortified with essential vitamins and minerals. Two months later, Duke’s company was shipping 175,000 bottles of beef and salmon-flavored Thirsty Dog! and Thirsty Cat! to stores across the country weekly. Business seemed to be booming. And why wouldn’t it be? The company tested the water on 15,000 pets and tweaked the formula about 100 times before arriving at the final product.

But today, Thirsty Dog! and Thirsty Cat! are recognized as among the biggest product flops in history. … Read The Rest

There are particular personality traits that make us good lawyers. For example, most lawyers are professional pessimists, able to spot the possible catastrophes in a transaction and anticipate a wide range of problems in any scenario. Most of us are also efficient, intense and results-oriented. And we learn to regulate our emotions to be effective.

Sounds great, right? Maybe. But while these traits make you a good lawyer, they do not make for a happy life. What to do? Here are a certified life coach’s top five strategies. … Read The Rest

Lawyers spend far too much of their valuable time chasing after unpaid invoices instead of working billable hours. Being able to schedule payments in advance provides both you and your clients with unmatched convenience, and helps ensure steady cash flow for your practice. This type of system is only… … Read The Rest

It’s almost a certainty that, at some point, every lawyer will have an unhappy client. In his seminal research on loyalty, business strategist Frederick Reichheld concluded that simply satisfying clients is not enough to retain them. Research showed that depending on the industry, between 65 and 85 percent of customers or clients who defected said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the company they abandoned. They left because they didn’t like the experience. … Read The Rest

Law firms are busy places, and sometimes the smaller operations are even more chaotic than their large firm counterparts. It’s important to keep that behind the scenes, though. Your clients should see only a well-oiled machine — beginning the moment they first make contact with the firm.

Often, the first interactions will involve your support staff. Theirs are the first faces a client sees when she walks through the door, the first greetings on the phone, and they are sometimes involved in the actual pre-screening process, too. So, it’s crucial that each of your support team members understands the message you want to send to the public and conveys it when dealing with clients, whether in person, on the phone or by email. … Read The Rest