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

In an age where data breach incidents have become a common occurrence, many corporations are beefing up security to protect themselves against data theft and the huge losses that accompany it — financial, IP and customer trust, among others. As a result, hackers have been increasingly turning their attention toward softer targets, including law firms and other service providers. Here are five steps you can take to protect your practice from technology-based threats without restricting the use of technologies that help increase your practice's efficiency. ... READ MORE

Ryan Sullivan has advice on setting boundaries and controlling the tone of your interactions with aggressive clients.

Question: We saw the TV ad the Georgia lawyer created for the Super Bowl and also heard that a national law firm spent a ton of money on Super Bowl advertising a few years ago. Was that a good idea? I think it was awfully expensive. Is this kind of TV advertising generally successful? In this edition of "Ask the Experts from the Legal Marketing Association," we check in with law firm marketers Joe Calve, Tina Emerson and Ian Turvill. ... READ MORE

It's a fitting way to celebrate National Grammar Day: Today we are announcing that lawyer and author Teddy Snyder is taking over Attorney at Work's monthly "Get to the Point" column. Teddy will be giving practical tips, picking at nits and — we're certain — offering an occasional rant aimed at helping us all communicate more effectively and confidently.

Few things will jolt lawyers into action faster than an incursion into the legal services market by someone who is not a lawyer. Claws out, fangs bared, hair raised on end, the profession aggressively protects its territory the way it knows best: by initiating a proceeding under the appropriate jurisdiction’s unauthorized practice of law regulatory framework. This […]