YouTube. The word evokes images of cute kittens, crazy stunts and viral video classics, like what happens when you mix Diet Coke and Mentos. It’s not where you would expect to find interesting and helpful videos on timely legal topics by some of the leading lawyers on the planet. Yet. In September, I was a panelist in a webinar focused on using video in the legal marketing mix, along with marketing innovators Adam Stock and Adam Severson. The webinar, sponsored by the Legal Marketing Association Social Media SIG, offered a primer on marketing videos for lawyers, and here are some key points.

Procrastination is a beast we all battle. Some days it feels like you'd rather do anything else but get work done. But you can't get away with that all the time. And sometimes the work just has to get completed posthaste, no matter what. So for this week's Friday Five, here are my personal five favorite tips for knocking out procrastination and just getting stuff done! ...

By now we can probably all agree that the cloud is not a mysterious and scary thing. We've bought into the idea that "anytime, anywhere" access to files and other stuff is, indeed, a pretty cool thing—and key to running a smart practice. After all, we're banking online, sharing photo albums and video accounts, and syncing our contact lists and calendars in the public cloud all the time. But while dropping a bit of data into Dropbox seems simple enough, trusting the meat-and-potatoes of your practice to the cloud—matters, client data, invoices—can cause an understandable increase in anxiety. Although we may "get" the cloud, we're just not so sure how much of our business we want to put there. Or where to start. Enter Nerino Petro, Diane Ebersole and Bryan Sims, who recently helped demystify cloud computing during a tip-packed session before a big crowd at the Illinois State Bar Association's Annual Solo and Small Firm Conference. ...

If you're still advertising your practice in print—newspapers, magazines or directories—it's really past time to dig deeply into whether this investment is still delivering value. Print magazine readership goes down by about two percent each year; readership for print newspapers and directories is plummeting at an even steeper pace. Net? The potential clients you're trying to reach through these media are less and less likely to be there. ...

Lawyers have been talking about and wrestling with “alternative billing methods” or "alternative fee agreements" for a decade or more. Recently, however, the conversation has shifted to “value billing.” Well, that’s a concept we can get behind. Once we understand what we all mean by value, of course. Enter Antigone Peyton. She’s wrapped her practice, Cloudigy Law, around the concept. Over the next few months, she’ll lay it all out in our series on "Value 101." ...

It may be among the toughest conversations you ever have to initiate. But when you think a colleague is in trouble—experiencing difficulties with drugs and alcohol or spiraling into a seemingly intractable depression, for example—it is worse, for both your friend and the firm, to avoid the issue. We’ve asked professionals in the know about how to approach a colleague, provide emotional support and establish appropriate workplace accommodations when these delicate issues arise. Last time, Mary Ellen Sullivan spoke with the Hon. Sarah Krauss about substance abuse. This time, the topic is depression.

In the grand scheme of things, we are all newbies adjusting to using mobile devices. After all, even if you had one of the first iPhones, it has only been five years. Technology consultants and others who make their living helping us to find better living through technology see some sad mobile blunders on a daily basis. For this week's Friday Five, Andrea Cannavina of LegalTypist, Inc. has a list of common newbie mistakes, and some quick fixes. ...

At solo and small firm conferences around the country, lawyers gather to polish their skills, learn about new technology—and pick up a marketing tip or two. At the Illinois State Bar Association's Annual Solo and Small Firm Conference last week, one of the key marketing themes heard was how to use technology to attract new clients. Here are four of the best marketing tips heard for building your digital presence—and your client base. ...

Exchanging documents with clients and outside counsel used to be a fairly mundane, straightforward endeavor. Attach the document to an email and send it off. Or, to deliver a large volume of documents or documents of a very large size, just burn a CD or thumb drive and send it via overnight delivery. However, what used to be a simple process is now fraught with complexity and potentially serious consequences for you and your firm. Data privacy regulations with severe penalties for breach of confidential client data have upped the ante—plus, there's the very real threat to law firms of cyber-attacks targeting individual attorneys within the firm. ...

Would you work for you? Why or why not? It’s a great question to ask yourself—often—if you are “da boss” or supervise other people. It provides a quick self-audit and points to things you’d be wise to keep doing—or to stop doing, and sooner than later. Below are a few of the typical compliments and disgruntlements […]