Last week in Atlanta, the College of Law Practice Management's (COLPM) annual Futures Conference, "Running With the Machines," explored the current state of artificial intelligence in law practice — and a glimpse into the future. We asked College Fellows Andy Daws, Susan Hackett, Patrick Lamb, Marc Lauritsen, Sharon Nelson, Mark Tamminga, Courtney Troutman, John Simek and Greg Siskind to share their perspective and top takeaways. Lace up your Asics!

Let's face it, a lot of the text in legal documents has been recycled from previous documents. If you're tired of searching for then copying and pasting common elements like signature blocks or notary acknowledgments from old documents, only to have to correct formatting or reset client-specific data, you're going to love Quick Parts.

The 80/20 rule is so ubiquitous that many of us have lost touch with its origins. Input/output? Sales leads/conversions? Clients/revenue? Greens/grains? Sharing my day/your day? Conceived by Vincent Pareto, the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, holds that roughly 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. Writ large, it’s widely applicable, and for good reason. It’s a highly valuable indicator of where your focus should be. And that brings us to promoting the content you produce.

Three KPI’s every small law firm should know. Running a small law firm is not easy. Not only do you zealously represent your clients, but you must also run a business. What are you looking at to make sure your business is performing profitably and as efficiently as possible? Do you have insights into your […]

Despite widespread recognition that the legal services business is undergoing the greatest change in its history, the industry still clings to a definition of relationships that doesn’t map to today’s reality. Different times and circumstances, as they say, call for different skills and approaches. This includes our worldview of relationships. It’s time for us to invest in “idea relationships” and rethink our personal and professional ones. In an age in which information flows freely and everyone expects answers at the stroke of a keyboard (or voice command), idea relationships succeed because your relevance is initially determined by what you know, not who you know.

Clio gets to see us with our pants off. With data on the billable and nonbillable activities of more than 60,000 lawyers, Clio sees what users of the practice management platform are doing on an everyday basis. And, as with last year’s report, conclusions from Clio’s second Legal Trends Report are striking. Here is the […]

As new technology emerges and new trends take over, how we market our business changes. You have to keep up in order to stay relevant, and all of the moving pieces should work together seamlessly so you can spend more time focused on generating new clients, and less time trying to string these things together. […]

Computer scientist Tony Hoare said, “There are two methods in software design. One is to make the program so simple, there are obviously no errors. The other is to make it so complicated, there are no obvious errors.” Asana falls into the latter category. But before I list the product’s material “Hoare errors,” let me first explain what it is and praise its virtues. Asana, which costs $10 per user per month, is a unique cross between to-do list and project management — more capable than apps like ToDoist or Wunderlist, and more flexible and easier to use than LiquidPlanner, ZoHo Projects and the like.

Most legal professionals would agree that the profession is saturated. With so many lawyers out there, there is heavy competition for clients. But as I wrote about in "Representing Rural Clients from a Big-City Office," this is not the case in rural America, where a lawyer shortage has considerable implications for access to justice. There is opportunity in these rural areas, not just for reaching people in need but also for building your law practice. And with today's technology options, you don’t need to set up shop in a small town to meet this opportunity. Online legal services companies are already using technology to provide legal consumers with virtual help, no matter where they happen to live. For example:

Question: "One of my longtime social and professional friends was appointed this year as our newest local judge. We have been social media friends for years. I haven’t appeared before her yet, but expect I will at some point. Are we obligated to “un-friend” and “unfollow” each other?" Our children are friends, too, and participate in many activities together. We share photos online. It appears harmless. Yet I’m thinking it’s not worth the risk. "And, if we do remain online friends, would disclosure of the online connections prevent any perceptions of impropriety?"