Where Does Your Time Go? Lawyers' utilization rates and productivity measures have been hot topics since Clio announced it will release its first “Legal Trends Report” later this month. Among the most stunning revelations will be the finding that, on average, a mere 22 percent of solo attorneys' time is billable each day. (That's two hours!) And that number only begins to improve slightly as the firm size increases to five to seven lawyers.* In anticipation of the report's release, we asked four practice management experts for their best tech tips to boost productivity and ensure more of your time is profitable. Here's good advice from Natalie Kelly, Courtney Kennaday, Erik Mazzone and Nora Regis — state and local bar advisors who assist solo and small firm lawyers every day.

I read an article recently called “Marketing Yourself as an Expert: What Clients Look For.” According to the research presented, there are five key factors that clients associate with “visible experts”:

• They come highly recommended by friends and colleagues (this was mentioned by 57 percent of the respondents)
• They’re effective communicators with the ability to make complicated subjects easily understandable (38 percent)
• They’re problem solvers with a proven track record of success that’s highly visible (36 percent)
• They inspire confidence when they speak (31 percent)
• They’re published in prestigious publications (27 percent)

Our own Merrilyn Aston Tarlton recently wrote here about five ways solos can find time for law firm retreats. And on that score, recently I became involved in a lengthy conversation with a large group of solos at TBD Law about both work and personal retreats (including the heavenly-sounding “annual personal retreat” designed around your personal definition of downtime, whether long solo mountain hikes or weekends at an ashram). While there are many reasons why retreats are important, I want to make the case for why solo and small firm lawyers should seriously consider the idea for ethics reasons.

Clients often ask me, “Roy, what’s the biggest mistake solo practitioners and small firm owners make when considering their retirement/succession strategies?” My answer? Attorneys permit their office situation, specifically a lease obligation, to muck things up. When family and friends ask why you have chosen this very moment to retire, do you really want your answer to be, “Well, my lease was up”? I sure hope my answer is a more thoughtful one

You have content on your website, your practice and bio pages, LinkedIn updates and posts, and, if you have one, a blog and client newsletter. That’s a lot of content, and it needs to be relevant and refreshed.

At the Futures Conference, there are always so many interesting new ideas pinging around it is impossible to catch them all. So this year, we enlisted a few people to help us keep track. Today we wrap Futures Week — our series on predictions about the future of the business of law — with their favorite ideas. Next year, of course, you'll want to be there yourself — to catch your own.

Life as a family law attorney is a pretty full docket. With high caseloads, too many calls to return, and yet another post on your favorite legal blog telling you everything you’re doing wrong in your practice, trying to keep up with everything can quickly drain you of your energy and motivation. The good news is that whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned family law attorney who is looking for a better, more efficient way to run your practice, streamlining your operations with legal practice management software can improve how you manage your firm and grow your business.

Will our data be any safer in 2026? That was the question I was asked to answer at the College of Law Practice Management’s 2016 Futures Conference. As part of a great legal technology panel, my answer was quick and decisive: No, it will not be.

Well, the short answer is: Read William Henderson's ABA Journal article “What the Jobs Are.” It’s hard to improve on Bill’s excellent work. But I’ll offer some complementary thoughts here. By 2026, we should be coming to the end of an extraordinary period in the law: several years of a continuously shrinking legal profession. The overall number of lawyers is going to decline for two main reasons:

Alternative Business Structures (ABS) is the innocuous label given to one of the most important, yet ignored, issues facing the legal profession today. It is the debate whether or not to change our ethics rules to allow non-lawyer corporate investors and managerial professionals to invest in new forms of law firms and share in the profits — something that is currently prohibited in 49 states. Proponents — often from large firms and academia — want to allow ABSs to spur additional capital investment in firms. They want to close the so-called “justice gap” in the legal services market by attracting additional capital investment to firms to develop more robust systems and technology so more people can obtain affordable legal services. Much of this new capital would flow to existing big firms to help them expand into consumer services such as family law, personal injury and bankruptcy, among others. Opponents — mostly solo and small firm lawyers — are concerned the profit motive of these non-lawyers will negatively impact professionalism.