My neighbor Charlie stopped me in the driveway the other night and asked, “Can you help me here? I got this stupid letter from some jerk lawyer, and I'm mad as hell!” He was red-faced, waving the offending letter violently. “Well, sure,” I replied, uncertain what kind of commitment I was making. I read the two-page letter, a response to a claim against the city.

Discussions about cross-selling in law firms remind me of the well-publicized discussions some years ago in the scientific world about cold fusion. Both represent their respective professions’ Holy Grail, but no one in either profession has made meaningful progress toward this elusive chimera, in part because of some very real and persistent barriers.

Does it feel like you can’t keep up with all the new kids on the block? (Nevermind keeping up with the digital marketing things you actually understand.) Worried that your office millennial will move on and you’ll have to figure out how to tackle online marketing all by yourself? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered with this Friday Five roundup of marketing tips (and links) from around the legal web. ... READ THE REST

Arizona was hit hard by illness this winter. Several people at my firm came down with cold and flu-type illnesses. Even I got sick; but thankfully, for my colleagues' sake, I am not contagious. I have depression. This doesn’t make me unique. A 2016 study by the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation found that 28 percent of lawyers have mild to severe depression. That’s 336,000 lawyers! ... READ THE REST

In the first two installments of "Blurred Lines," Tom Lambotte explained why you need a mobile device management policy and a fully encrypted Mac hard drive. In this last installment, he points to a security fail that's easy to overlook. Tom will be speaking at the session “Home-Mac; Work-Mac” at ABA TECHSHOW this week! The security of your backups isn't often discussed, but that doesn't mean you should ignore the issue. Backups are critical, but just as important is ensuring your backups are not at risk. Many home users have a local backup hard drive — and many Mac users use the built-in backup, Time Machine, because of its simplicity. Others go the route of making a bootable clone — a bit-by-bit copy of their entire hard drive. And some users do both the Time Machine backup and the clone. ... READ THE REST

We're seeing a record number of law firm mergers these days. Primarily this is because so many firms fail to recognize and adapt to the big changes in the profession — and then, ultimately, they realize they can't survive on their own. Attorney at Work invited me to give my best advice to law firms that want to thrive in the changing legal marketplace. So I'll give it to you straight, in five basic steps. ... READ THE REST

The parade of presidential candidates across my television screen has reminded me of the transactional analysis best-seller, "I’m OK, You’re OK." Transactional analysis is a psychoanalytic therapy method. It defines three ego-states: Child, Parent and Adult. While in their Parent ego-state, speakers tend to use patronizing speech patterns and gestures.

Many lawyers create Facebook pages for their law firms because they know it’s something they "ought to do" for their online marketing. Set up website. Check! Write blog posts. Check! Have a presence on social media. Check! What often happens, though, is the lawyer completely misses the purpose of this social networking site, which is to interact with other Facebook users and build relationships that may eventually lead to new cases or referrals. Instead, they create a Facebook page and then abandon it, checking in now and then to publish the occasional post. Or they use the page solely as a publishing platform, constantly pushing out content and never paying attention to their Facebook fans. Don’t be that lawyer ... READ THE REST

If this sounds like a thinly veiled excuse to write an article about "The X-Files" that is only tangentially related to law practice management, well, it is. So, sue me. (See what I did there.) It worked out with the Eagles, right? This is, after all, kind of my specialty. Hang in there.

Last week in "Blurred Lines, Part One: Using Macs at Work and Home," Tom Lambotte explained the reasons your firm needs a mobile device management policy. In Part Two, the Mac IT pro explains why you need to embrace full disk encryption. Tom will be speaking at the session "Home-Mac; Work-Mac" at ABA TECHSHOW this month. Just because you use a login password on your laptop does not mean the data is secure. You must also fully encrypt your Mac's hard drive. Why? A standard password-protected computer leaves the contents of its hard drive accessible to anyone with the patience to remove the drive. ... READ THE REST