If you’re a solo practitioner or in a small law firm, you are likely a slave to your smartphone, making sure clients can always reach you. As the managing partner at a small firm, I found it increasingly difficult to keep up with my clients' demands as my practice grew. Many weekends I spent more time on my phone talking and emailing with clients than I spent enjoying my "free" time. I decided I needed to cut down on the after-hours and weekend communications.

Zola Suite Launches RPost’s Services in its Law Practice Management Platform Zola Suite has announced that email open tracking, certified e-delivery proof, email encryption, and e-signatures are now built into its law practice management email, matter, and time management functions. This combination of Zola Suite and RPost redefines “legal email” for lawyers. Zola Suite is a comprehensive, […]

Until recently, law firms have had to rely on generic business software for managing customer relations, including intake. Salesforce is the longtime leader in that category. Starting with Avvo’s release of Ignite, however, law firm-specific choices have become available. One of the latest entries, Lexicata, built by LawKick co-founders Michael Chasin and Aaron George, represents an important step forward in this segment.

A big part of a lawyer’s role is negotiation, and that means numbers. A lawyer has to be able to calculate the value of whatever is being negotiated. Case evaluation is part art and a lot of math. Pulling a number out of the air and hoping the other side will accept it does a disservice to your client and the other parties to the negotiation. You will be more persuasive if you can show your position is supported by a solid analysis of the financial factors driving the negotiation.

Last month I signed up to take the California bar exam in July. (I'm fully aware I might be insane.) Taking the Arizona bar exam right after law school, when I had no obligations outside of studying, was challenging enough. This time, I reached out to colleagues who passed a second bar exam while working to ask for their advice on braving the gauntlet again.

It seems that every solo lawyer I meet has a list of things they would like to be doing better in their practice. Sometimes the motivating factor is business growth, sometimes it’s efficiency. At the heart of many “to do” items, though, is a desire to create a more ethically sound practice. Where do you start? Don’t […]

The Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference is where lawyers and legal marketers go to get up to date on the latest techniques, trends and tools. Here are top content-related takeaways from last week’s confab in Las Vegas.

Regarding your self-promotion, I have good news and I have bad news. Good news: There are more opportunities to promote yourself than ever before. Bad news: The sprawl of marketing opportunities is so fractured and vast, you'll need multiple personas to cover them all. Think of yourself as not just one lawyer. You’re an entire firm — a matryoshka doll in an Armani suit. To serve these nested personas, you need more than one biography.

During the ABA TECHSHOW 2017 program "The Startups Are Coming," Andrew Arruda suggested we reframe the sentiment to: "The nimble companies are here to help you." Not as sexy but a lot more accurate than an analogous popular refrain: "Robot lawyers are coming to take your jobs." Andrew exhorted legal professionals in another session to sit next to the engineers in the room, learn from them, team up and work together to innovate. So, I dutifully ran down to Startup Alley in the expo hall to interview some of the nimble companies, and was able to catch a few before the hall shut down. They were great sports. Here, with minimal editing, are their stories in their own words.

Chaos sounds the death knell for any solo attorney’s practice. It breeds confusion, distraction and disorder. Unfortunately, for most solos, chaos is the natural state of affairs. The reason is simple: The practice of law consists of many moving parts at all times, each of which is dynamic and contingent. Take a simple example from my personal injury practice: a car accident.