When awards season and Chambers nominations roll around, some firms find themselves scrambling to cobble together nomination applications. It’s understandable. I’ve been on both sides: crafting nominations, judging entries and writing copy about the winners. Initially, I thought crafting great narrative in a nomination would clinch the deal. There was gold there, and I just needed to weave it together properly. But I’ve become convinced that a Man Booker winner could draft your nomination and it wouldn’t guarantee a win. Why?

The key to a profitable law practice is to work smarter, not harder. One important tool that allows you to do this is document assembly. For 30 years, HotDocs technology has been used by law firms worldwide to improve their document production processes. Listed below are several best practices gained from thousands of small law firms that use HotDocs each day.

To save time and labor in writing emails, consider composing templates or boilerplates that can easily be inserted into new emails and email messages you respond to. That’s the premise and promise of Ant Text, an add-in for Outlook and Outlook Web Access (OWA) running on Exchange Server 2013 and above, which includes Office 365.

When it comes to their skill in the courtroom, or their mastery when engaging clients, lawyers are mostly a confident bunch. When the conversation switches to marketing, however, that happy feeling is often replaced with anxiety, aversion or even outright hatred. This isn’t because lawyers don’t understand or believe in marketing. Rather, it’s because many of them have spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on both online and offline marketing, and instead of reaping a significant ROI, they end up sending out an SOS.

In the years it takes before your lawyering skills develop to where you can produce work product that clients will pay for, you cost your firm a lot more than you generate. That’s expected, but it doesn’t mean that in the interim you can’t deliver a different form of value. You want to earn the attention of the partners who will decide which assignments go to which associates, and which ones they’ll devote time and attention to mentoring.

Lawyers are essentially professional writers. Last year, I saw my friend and New York Times best-selling author Scott Sigler speak at Phoenix Comicon about how he managed to be a prolific writer and handle the business side of being a professional artist. To date, he’s written 15 novels, six novellas and dozens of short stories. His devoted fans get tattoos inspired by his work. He even has his own annual convention. Scott is one of the hardest-working, most successful and seemingly happiest people I know. When he mentioned he had a system that allows him to manage all his projects and still have time to play bass in a band, I wanted to know more. Thankfully, he was willing to share his productivity secrets, along with the truth about being a successful entrepreneur.

Are you feeling like you can never get out from under the pressure of running a small law firm? Now you have statistics to validate that. When Thomson Reuters published their 2017 State of U.S. Small Law Firms Study, it revealed these five challenges — and little has changed.

If you’ve decided to try your hand at video marketing, here are some steps to start promoting your video content.

In an earlier post, "Money Management Tips for New Associates," we focused on how freshly minted lawyers can start their financial life on the right foot. Now let's fast-forward a few years and consider some guidance for mid-level associates and young law firm owners. So, you’re older and wiser. What should you do at this point to keep your finances on the right track?

Back in January 2017, I was having breakfast with a local lawyer when he said, “I think I need to raise my rates this year. I am just not making enough money, and raising my rates should make the year more profitable.” This led me to ask, "Do you know how much additional money you would actually make by raising your rates?" Maybe raising rates was needed; maybe not.