In an issue of Strategy+Business, management guru Tom Peters suggests a number of books he considers valuable to read. In the interview, he quotes a respected business leader friend who argues that the No. 1 problem with big company CEOs is "they don’t read enough.” While it's impossible to stay on top of everything, Peters urges us to read, voraciously.

Sometimes your day is cruising happily along. Then some bump in the road — or a major pothole — comes along to derail you from the easy life. And then there are days when everything seems to go wrong all day long. Life isn't always easy, but there are steps you can take to make your days better. Here are five.

I participate in a lot of law firm retreats and meetings, but one will always stand out. I was talking with representatives of the firm before the retreat kicked off when one of the partners pulled me aside, pointed out another firm partner and asked me who he was. Now, keep in mind that this wasn’t a 1,000-lawyer firm; the firm had fewer than 100 lawyers. And I didn’t even work there. It is a good illustration of how siloed law firms often are into practice areas, offices or working teams. When attending firm meetings, the tendency for many lawyers is to sit with people they already know. Yes, you are giving up your time and want to enjoy yourself. But if you don't take a strategic view of your participation, you waste a great opportunity to build your internal profile and network.

While there are many factors that will influence the selling price, these five will get you started in evaluating — and increasing — your practice's value.

According to the International Legal Technology Association, almost half of all legal purchases of imaging, scanning or optical character recognition is made by small law firms.* If you’re among them, congratulate yourself for making a smart investment in paperless technology, considering that increasingly: Clients prefer the speed and ease of communicating electronically. Jurisdictions require documents […]

According to the projections in a VoiceLabs report, about 33 million voice-first devices were in circulation at the start of the year. By voice-first, we mean devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home that sit on your counter and only interact with voice commands. This report doesn't even count the hundreds of millions of mobile phones, tablets and convertible PCs that have Siri, Hey Google or Cortana built in. With all the voice search options in consumers' hands, here are five things law firms need to know about voice search.

What writers need is a method they can use to create a first draft. Of course, lots of magic happens during revision of that draft, when writers refine their thoughts further. That’s when they apply Word styles. But they need a first draft to work from. If getting to that first draft is difficult for you, read on. Mind mapping may be for you.

There are myriad reasons to run an efficient, sound, organized law practice. Here are two great ones, from an ethics standpoint: First, it helps lawyers avoid making the costly errors that lead to ethics trouble. Second, when lawyers receive a bar complaint — as many eventually will, no matter how well they practice law — responding effectively is significantly simpler. We've discussed those reasons in this column before. But, with all the talk about why we should improve our practices, the fact is that tweaking the edges of processes and procedures will not bring about the level of improvement most of us need.

Now lawyers use every term they can think of because some court somewhere once said the language in the contract didn’t cover the dispute. Sometimes that’s a good reason, but often it is not. Rather than a considered approach, most lawyers start with a template that has been reworked over decades (centuries?) without ever removing archaic language.

We appear to have reached the tipping point with regard to whether employers can ask job seekers about their current compensation. In addition to the various jurisdictions that have passed legislation prohibiting such inquiries, many companies, such as Amazon, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have instituted companywide policies prohibiting them. And many law firms have done the same — even those that have little or no operations in the jurisdictions noted. The question now is: What will the impact be?