Technology can be your ticket to a successful, profitable practice — or it can be a debilitating nightmare. Choosing and using technology well is essential to an efficient, growing practice with satisfied clients, a happy team — and a less-stressed attorney. If you haven’t reviewed your office's technology in more than two years, I can almost guarantee your practice's needs have changed and that your operations — and profits — are suffering.

A growing body of research suggests that reading fiction increases your capacity for empathy. The basic idea is that imagining the emotional world of fictional characters is good practice for empathizing with actual humans. For example, have you noticed that when you read a favorite novel you’re able to feel what the characters are feeling? It happens so naturally, we don’t realize this is strange. The characters aren’t real, you’ve never met them, and they’re often doing things you could never do. This is great news, right? An easy way for lawyers to develop more empathy. But can you see the challenge?

Lawyernomics is one of the tentpole legal technology conferences every year. There are only a few other events at the intersection of law and technology that bring you a comparable combination of content, attendees, vendors and, of course, Vegas! The theme at this year’s Lawyernomics is “making connections,” so here are five ways you can make important connections at Lawyernomics 2018.

Legal Project Management (LPM). It’s a buzzword you hear a lot in the legal industry as the “next big thing.” In fact, managing a matter as a lawyer is as old as the profession itself. What’s different now are the tools available to manage your matter more efficiently and even achieve higher profits. Properly planning […]

Margaret Atwood, the author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has frequently noted that with all technology, there is a good side, a bad side and a stupid side that you weren’t expecting. With major advances in technology, like the internet itself, it is easy to think of examples of all three. Of course, since digital communication tools permeate the world and the workplace today, it’s almost unavoidable that lawyers’ business communications with clients are largely done via technology. So it is a useful oversimplification to state that law firms should design an overall client communications strategy of minimizing the bad, enhancing the good and avoiding the stupid. This requires thoughtful planning that must be done expeditiously and reviewed regularly because technology will continue to evolve.

Business development needn’t be complicated, difficult or distressing. However, for many lawyers, it’s all of that. Most of that can be eliminated by a single shift in perspective. It comes down to this: You need a specific market focus to be relevant.

Turnover in law firms, especially with young lawyers, is at its highest level ever. Nothing law firms have done to date has reversed this trend and the damage to firms is almost unfathomable. Thanks to turnover, the top 400 law firms lose roughly $9.1 billion annually, according to a report by JD Match and Right Profile. Further, high turnover rates compromise morale, taint reputation, forfeit hundreds of hours of training and teaching, and disrupt and challenge firm culture and practice groups. Clients, too, are often unhappy or suspect when a lawyer leaves. In this climate, what are the best practical ways for lawyers and law firms to respond?

Producing content that serves readers and the business objectives of the publisher — in this case, your law practice — is the No. 1 goal of a content strategy. Building an effective body of content requires consistent outreach. If you’ve been at it for a while, you know the work that’s involved. So what happens when there’s a glitch in the publication machine? ... The solution is preparing for that eventuality.

Those who know me know I love sports. So, it should come as no surprise that I follow sports-related teams, figures and organizations on social media. About twice a year, I run across a list targeted at young would-be athletes of things that require “zero talent” — things like attitude, work ethic and being coachable. When the list popped up again recently, many of the factors struck me as appropriate for lawyers who would like to be rainmakers but claim they are not “naturals.”

You have an 80 percent chance of a malpractice suit, according to the ABA. Find out how to beat the odds. Have you ever awoken in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because you were worried you might have blown a statute of limitations date? If you have, that’s a solid indication that you’re in the right field, says Nerino Petro, Esq., technology co-editor for the ABA "GP|Solo Magazine."