Does your practice project a welcoming image — or are you sending a different message to prospective clients? In his "Welcome Mat" series, Oklahoma attorney Noble McIntyre offers tips on creating a welcoming law office — from telephone etiquette to office design to the people on the front line. Below: Some dos and don'ts for reception areas and conference rooms. So you've had a promising initial phone call with your prospective client. Chances are your next interaction will be a meeting at your law office. Look around. Does your firm’s physical environment reinforce your brand and convey the identity you want it to? For example, is your firm large and growing? Small and planning to stay that way? Your reception area and conference room will set the tone for how clients perceive your practice, especially at that first meeting. READ MORE

Don't you wish you had a superpower, or at least some handy mobile tools, that would help you get, keep and cross-sell more clients? Well, wish no more. Law firm business development experts are producing apps that can help with motivation, information and even training for all your client-getting activities. (As for your possible personal superpowers, you’re on your own.) We asked Deborah McMurray, who recently launched the Velocity app, to give us the scoop on hers and two related apps. ... READ MORE

All it takes is a quick eye-popping view of Riverview Law’s television campaign to understand the disruptive force of this InnovAction Award-winning U.K. firm. For law firms stuck on the billable hour, it's likely to be indigestion-inducing. Fixed fees. For everything. Every. Thing. In this week's Friday Five, Andy Daws, responsible for Riverview’s growing footprint in North America, answers the question, “Wait … they can’t do that, can they?” Lead, follow or get out of the way. ... READ MORE

Prior to working with a sixth-year associate recently, I reviewed her online profiles. After we had talked for an hour, I noted that her bio was a complete disconnect from her practice. While she originally had been assigned to the firm’s estate planning area, she'd spent the past three years on commercial real estate matters, which was also the practice she wanted to develop. When I asked why the bio contained nothing about her recent experience, she said it hadn’t been updated since shortly after she joined the firm. I spend a lot of time working with lawyers to improve their firm bios and LinkedIn profiles. I know what some of you are thinking: “Is it really that important?” The answer is yes, and the reason is that buying behavior is changing. READ MORE

Joe stormed into my office and demanded to borrow my nine iron. It has a nice feel and weight, and I use it to practice swings in the office when I felt tense or meditative. Joe looked tense — but not very meditative. “What's up?” I asked. “That slimy little bastard has gone too far this time,” he replied heatedly. “I'm gonna take him out!”

Nobody ever thinks a data loss is going to happen to them. But it can, and likely will, happen to you, if you practice long enough — and, sometimes, even if you don’t. Inside of the first two years of my first career as a practicing lawyer, my firm experienced a significant data loss involving a burrito, an ex-Navy man, and some questionable plumbing that extended all the way to a medical office with which we shared a building. (I’ll let your mind take you the rest of the way there.) But that was a decade ago — several lifetimes in terms of technology — and the data management landscape for law firms is now qualitatively different.

Research-based legal rankings have become annual fixtures in law firm marketing calendars, especially as the main directories' cachet increases. Listings can be a great opportunity to publicize and enhance the reputation of individual lawyers as well as your firm's practice areas. Making it onto these lists, however, is not always as simple as it sounds. ... READ MORE

You knew it had to happen. After years of blogs, hashtags and conferences referencing "The End of Lawyers," "Legal Rebels" and "New Normal," the movement finally became — you’ll excuse the expression — "old school." In February, while 800-plus people crammed into a basement theater at New York City's Cooper Union for #ReinventLaw’s third happening, Harvard Law School quietly tweeted that it would soon also host a free conference on Disruptive Innovation in the Market for Legal Services. One month later, on March 6, 125 people showed up in Cambridge for the conference, presented by Harvard Law's Program on the Legal Profession. Here are five things I loved about that conference. ... READ MORE

What does it take to land television interviews and features in media outlets like Fox, The New York Times and CNBC? "How to Build Your Brand and Grow Your Network" is Daliah Saper's topic at the upcoming Lawyernomics 2014 conference — and with a list of honors and awards as long as your arm, it's no wonder she's in demand. Saper heads a five-lawyer intellectual property, social media and business law firm with headline-grabbing clients and cases. Who better to ask, we thought, about branding your practice? Here's what she said. READ MORE

As I looked out at the audience while teaching a CLE course recently, I started to wonder how many of them were there because they were interested in the material or because they just needed the credit hours. What were they really doing when they appeared to be taking notes? I’ve been to my fair share of interesting-sounding CLE programs that turned out to be boring or not on the topic I expected — that’s when I spend the hour catching up on Twitter. I thought I’d see what my fellow legal eagles think about and do at CLE programs, so I created a survey. Some of the results were pretty interesting. ... READ MORE