Facebook expert Mari Smith posted some tips when using hashtags on Facebook:

• Even if you don’t have hashtag functionality yet, Smith recommends that you begin using strategic hashtags in your public Facebook posts on both your personal Facebook Profile and your Facebook Business Page; those who have the feature already enabled will be able to click on those hashtags (and eventually everyone else, including you, will catch up).
• Don’t forget to use hashtags when you’re posting to Facebook from your mobile device. Although there’s no support for hashtags on the mobile apps yet, they’ll work on desktop versions of Facebook.
• Every hashtag on Facebook has its own unique URL with a status update box at the top. You can drive traffic to that URL from other sites to spark more conversation.
• Search for hashtags by typing into the main search box, click on hashtags when you see them, or use your browser to search Facebook hashtags by typing: facebook.com/hashtag/xxx (replace the x’s with the tag you want to look up).
• Hashtags work in both posts and comments.
• The original post audience still prevails privacy-wise; in other words, if you restrict a post to Friends only and include a hashtag, the hashtag will be clickable and will open up other posts containing the same hashtag, but your post will still only be visible to your Friends.
• Hashtags shared in private groups will open to show public posts with that tag (along with any friends’ posts with that tag), but posts from the private group will only be visible to members.
• Hashtag searches reveal only posts, not individual comments.

Marketing company E-Webstrategy adds these helpful hashtag hints:

• Be strategic with your use of hashtags
• Use only 1-2 hashtags per post
• Make long hashtags readable by capitalizing the first letter in each word
• Use tags in trending topics related to your industry [or your clients’ industries]

Some Facebook users are already posting requests that people not overuse hashtags or posts links to articles with titles that include several hashtags. Instead, put hashtags after the title and link.

The post Facebook Hashtags appeared first on Law Technology Today.

Here is the initial email:

From: Kawasan TechCenter [mailto:Kawasan@tech-center.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 8:55 AM
To:
Subject: Litigation

Account Manager
Teach-Centre Corp
Industrial Bdr Sultan Suleiman,
42000 Pelabuhan Klang,
Selangor Malaysia
Tell: (601)-62947615
Email: kawasan@tech-center.com

How to handle a real or suspected fraud

If you have been targeted by any of these frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to fraudinfo@lawpro.ca.

If you suspect you are acting on a matter that might be a fraud, call LAWPRO at 1-800-410-1013 (416-598-5899). We will talk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential claim, we will work with you to prevent the fraud and minimize potential claims costs.

If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there may be a claim against you.

For more immediate updates on fraud and claims prevention, subscribe to the email or RSS feed updates from LAWPRO’s AvoidAClaim blog.

Fraud Fact Sheet More fraud prevention information and resources are available on the practicePRO Fraud page, including the Fraud Fact Sheet, a handy reference for lawyers and law firm staff that describes the common frauds and the red flags that can help identify them.

The Law Society of Upper Canada’s Practice Management Technology Guideline specifically reminds lawyers to address concerns about client confidentiality, security, disaster management and technological obsolescence, and that a certain level of lawyer competence in the security of technology is necessary to comply with the Rules of Professional Conduct.

This article offers a checklist of 11 ways in which lawyers can ensure they are protecting client information when using technology.

To read the article click here or on the image above. The article orginally appeared in the the September 2010 “Risky Business” issue of LAWPRO Magazine. All past issues of LAWPRO Magazine can be found at www.lawpro.ca/magazinearchives

For 2014, the Board is going a step further: they’re looking for your help in recognizing undiscovered topics and influential speakers.

To submit a proposal, just visit the ABA TECHSHOW 2014 Speaker Proposal form and provide some details on the topic you’re interested in presenting.

The submissions will be collected and considered by the ABA TECHSHOW Board as they plan for the conference, which will take place from March 27-29, 2014 at the Hilton Chicago.  If you’re curious about topics that have been presented before, you can still visit the 2013 schedule on the ABA TECHSHOW website.

Keep in mind that submission of a topic proposal is no guarantee that you’ll be asked to speak on the topic or that the topic will be selected.

The submission process only lasts through July 1st, 2013 so submit your proposal now!

The post Call for Proposals: ABA TECHSHOW 2014 appeared first on Law Technology Today.

Here is the initial email:

From: Brownson Co Ltd. [mailto:sales4.hoiyip@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2013 10:02 AM
To:
Subject: Legal Inquiry

Jessica Li-Quang.
General Manager
Brownson Co Ltd.
CHIBA-SHI-KU,
HUMANO-CHOU 109-8
JAPAN
Tel:+81 50 5539 6536
Tel:+81 50 5534 8060
felanbtrading@yahoo.com.hk

How to handle a real or suspected fraud

If you have been targeted by any of these frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to fraudinfo@lawpro.ca.

If you suspect you are acting on a matter that might be a fraud, call LAWPRO at 1-800-410-1013 (416-598-5899). We will talk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential claim, we will work with you to prevent the fraud and minimize potential claims costs.

If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there may be a claim against you.

For more immediate updates on fraud and claims prevention, subscribe to the email or RSS feed updates from LAWPRO’s AvoidAClaim blog.

Fraud Fact Sheet More fraud prevention information and resources are available on the practicePRO Fraud page, including the Fraud Fact Sheet, a handy reference for lawyers and law firm staff that describes the common frauds and the red flags that can help identify them.

Here is the initial email:

From: Daiki Izawa
Date: June 13, 2013, 8:39:29 PM PDT
To:
Subject: Legal Represent
We are Japan General Appliance Co., Ltd and We would like to know if you have conflict that will prevent you from representing us against an entity in your jurisdiction.

Daiki Izawa CEO/CFO
Japan General Appliance Co.,Ltd.
11th Fl., TT-1 Bldg. 14-8, Nihonbashi
Ningyo-cho 1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
ZIP 103-0013
TEL: 03-5643-1331
Email;daikiizawa@gmail.com
www.jgap.co.jp

How to handle a real or suspected fraud

If you have been targeted by any of these frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to fraudinfo@lawpro.ca.

If you suspect you are acting on a matter that might be a fraud, call LAWPRO at 1-800-410-1013 (416-598-5899). We will talk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential claim, we will work with you to prevent the fraud and minimize potential claims costs.

If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there may be a claim against you.

For more immediate updates on fraud and claims prevention, subscribe to the email or RSS feed updates from LAWPRO’s AvoidAClaim blog.

Fraud Fact Sheet More fraud prevention information and resources are available on the practicePRO Fraud page, including the Fraud Fact Sheet, a handy reference for lawyers and law firm staff that describes the common frauds and the red flags that can help identify them.

Here is the initial email:

From: Mr Wei Mingzhu. [mailto:hweaver@mc.edu]
Sent: June 14, 2013 9:56 AM
Subject: Debt Collection matter

I am in need of your Legal assistance on a debt collection matter and i sincerely hope you will be able to assist me.
Regards,
Mr Wei Mingzhu.

How to handle a real or suspected fraud

If you have been targeted by any of these frauds, please forward any of the emails and supporting documents that you have received to fraudinfo@lawpro.ca.

If you suspect you are acting on a matter that might be a fraud, call LAWPRO at 1-800-410-1013 (416-598-5899). We will talk you through the common fraud scenarios we are seeing and help you spot red flags that may indicate you are being duped. This will help you ask appropriate questions of your client to determine if the matter is legitimate or not. If the matter you are acting on turns out to be a fraud and there is a potential claim, we will work with you to prevent the fraud and minimize potential claims costs.

If you have been successfully duped, please immediately notify LAWPRO as there may be a claim against you.

For more immediate updates on fraud and claims prevention, subscribe to the email or RSS feed updates from LAWPRO’s AvoidAClaim blog.

Fraud Fact Sheet More fraud prevention information and resources are available on the practicePRO Fraud page, including the Fraud Fact Sheet, a handy reference for lawyers and law firm staff that describes the common frauds and the red flags that can help identify them.

In this 30 minute webinar sponsored by Mozy, understand why your law firm should be protecting critical data, how to do so with the flexibility of the cloud, how to restore your information to any device, and more. Please join us on Wednesday, June 26th at 2pm ET for our free webinar, Data Protection and Cloud Backup for Any Size Firm.

About the Webinar
Data Protection and Cloud Backup for Any Size Firm
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
2:00pm – 2:30pm ET
Free Registration

Learning Objectives

• Learn how to restore your information to any device
• Gain insight on file encryption levels and secure off-site storage
• Understand the importance of protecting critical data
• Explore the flexibility, cost effectiveness and accessibility of the cloud

This webinar is sponsored by Mozy

The post Data Protection and Cloud Backup For Any Size Firm appeared first on Law Technology Today.

In his article “The legal status of virtual goods” in the May 31 edition of the Lawyers Weekly, Jonathan Mesiano-Crookston described several examples of the creation of virtual assets – some worth millions – by online gaming participants. While most clients will not claim such exotic revenue streams, they may well accumulate points, credits, or other valuable interests and rights through online activity. Even clients who engage in no commercial activity on the internet often use social media, creating accounts, profiles, and original content. There is no question that these activities create value, even if that value cannot readily be quantified in dollar terms.

The value of online activity and content has been taken into account in corporate and commercial transactions for many years now. However, making arrangements for the management of personal online content (sometimes called the “virtual estate”) after a client’s death, via a will or otherwise, is still an emerging practice. In a matte story created by LAWPRO for distribution this spring, we’ve encouraged clients to begin thinking about their virtual estates, and to raise the issue with an estates lawyer.

If you are one of the many lawyers who has not yet had occasion to address a virtual estate in a will, we’d like to suggest that the time has come to begin considering the issue of virtual estates, and to begin speaking with clients.

In many cases, the easiest approach, for clients, is to make arrangements for the transfer of control over online accounts and property outside of the will. For example, a client may, when naming an attorney for property, give that person a list of logins and passwords for online bank accounts and points-collection programs (for example, airline “miles” programs). Spouses may also share this information with each other, to permit seamless access to property that is intended to pass to the surviving spouse.

With respect to social media accounts and other non-commercial activities, it is often useful to advise a client to provide a list of access credentials to a trusted relative or friend so that that friend can close or modify the accounts after the user’s death. There are also commercial services available for the posthumous management of online accounts; however, these generally require that the user provide confidential information to the service, which may not appeal to some.

Ultimately, the most important action to take, for now, with respect to virtual estates is to begin raising the issue with clients. Many wills clients may not have given the issue much thought, and may be grateful for the prompt to begin considering what they’d like to have happen with this aspect of their legacy.

This article is by Nora Rock, corporate writer & policy analyst at LAWPRO.

For example, if you speak publicly, you can add “public speaking” as a skill to your LinkedIn Profile. Your LinkedIn Connections and anyone who visits your Profile then have the opportunity to confirm that they believe that you in fact have that skill or expertise.

To see how this works, go to the Profile of someone you know and you’ll see a box that says “Does X have these skills or expertise?” and has perhaps five or six boxes with skill names (blogging, litigation, etc.). You can “x” out boxes with skills that don’t apply and then click on a button that says “Endorse.” You can also simply click on the “Skip” button and not bother with any endorsing.

After that, you, usually with a small thumbnail of your LinkedIn Profile picture, will show up on that person’s Profile as one of the number of people who have endorsed the person for those skills.

The excellent Ask Dave Taylor blog recently provided the answer to a common question about endorsements: “Can I Remove an Endorsement on LinkedIn?”

As Dave says in his answer, it’s tempting to say “don’t worry about it” and say that it doesn’t really matter. However, as his answer states, there could be situations where you want to remove your endorsement. He singles out the case where you are well-known in a field and your endorsement of a skill might carry much more weight than you intended. Other examples I can think of are when you realize that you endorsed someone for something that they don’t really do or where something happens where you want to distance yourself from any comments about a person’s skills (call this the “the person I endorsed is now going to prison for using the skill I endorsed him for” scenario). You might think of others.

Dave’s blog post provides a great answer with helpful explanations and I thoroughly recommend it to you.

Here’s the quick answer. When you go to someone’s Profile, you’ll see a blue plus sign for the skills you’ve already endorsed for that person. If you move your cursor over the plus sign next to the skill you want to “unendorsed,” the plus sign turns into a minus sign with the phrase “Remove Endorsement.” Click on it. Voila. You no longer endorse the person for that skill. Even better, he or she is not notified that you unendorsed them.

If you’ve been a little too “endorsement happy” on LinkedIn and are rethinking your approach, this tip should prove to be a useful one.

The post “Unendorsing” People You’ve Already Endorsed on LinkedIn appeared first on Law Technology Today.

Lyrics, music and recorded by Ambrosia.

STRATEGIC PLANNING IS AGAIN HIGH ON FIRMS’ AGENDAS

This is another guest post from my friend Bob Denney.  It is of particular interest since my MBA was in the area of the strategic application of technology to the practice of law.  So to see a renewed growing interest in the area of strategic planning is a gratifying one – and one that I truly endorse.

So without further ado – here are Bob’s insights into this area:

Several recently published surveys confirm that a large percentage of firms, regardless of size, have put many of the same issues high on their agendas for this year. In no particular order, these are some of them:

• The need to grow in order to survive
• Seeking a merger if they can’t grow
• Clients insistence on receiving value for their legal spend
• The need to obtain regular client feedback
• Dealing with under-performing partners
• Succession planning
• Continued lateral hiring in lieu of associate recruiting
• Decreasing leverage because of fewer associates
• Practice group organization and management
• Increased competition from online sources and alternative legal service providers
• Strategic Planning

None of these issues are surprising but the return of Strategic Planning to firms’ agendas is a healthy sign because many firms had abandoned planning during the recession, Yet, as most businesses and organizations have long recognized, it is essential. Now law firms are recognizing it is more essential than ever because of the many changes in the legal profession.

Integrated Strategic Planning, as we define it, has always been one of our largest areas of practice and now the number of these projects we are working on has increased over 300% in the past six months. For firms that have not yet put Strategic Planning on their agendas, we attach a discussion of the benefits, misconceptions and application of the process.

Robert Denney Associates Inc. provides strategic management and marketing counsel to law firms, companies and non-profit organizations throughout the United States. Previous Communiques as well as information about our services may be viewed on our web site. P.O. Box 551, Wayne, PA 19087-0551 • 610-644-7020 • fax: 610-296-8726 email: bob@robertdenney.com • web site: www.robertdenney.com

Thanks Bob for highlighting how strategic planning and its components should be high on the list of things that management should be doing in law firms!

. . .

Let me preface everything I am about to write with this warning: I am not, in any way, a tech aficionado. I do not know how to ‘jailbreak‘ a cell phone, I could not write a computer program to save my life, and I definitely do not know what the ‘G’ in ‘4G’ stands for.  So, what am I good for?  Well, I can find my way around a computer pretty well, and I love the Android operating system on my current phone.  The interesting thing, at least to some people, is that the computer I can find my way around is a MacBook Pro.  That’s right . . . I love my MacBook Pro.  Before this, I had a black MacBook, and before that I had a small laptop running an early version of Windows Vista — which is what persuaded me to dive into the world of Mac.

In my humble, not-tech-savvy opinion, the MacBook Pro is an incredible machine — not just because it looks great and tends to be well-built, but because of Apple’s operating systems.  In my case, the OS (see, I know some jargon) is Mountain Lion.  And, boy, is this thing great.  The system is intuitive.  It is clean.  It can keep up with my frenetic work pace.  It is, in a word, brilliant.  I remember, several years ago, before I bought my first Mac, I asked a friend who owned one (sorry, Toyota, that slogan does work for other companies, as well) why he loved his Mac so much.  He said, ‘I can’t really explain it; but, trust me.  You will see if you get one.  When you use it, it just . . . it just makes sense.’  He was right.

I cannot explain it either.  But, there is something about the power and OS interface and design that makes using a MacBook a wonderful, hassle-free experience.  It really does ‘just make sense’.  It does what I want it to do.  It gives me the impression — false as it may be — that I really am in control of this machine, and that it really does work with me.  Most importantly, it places years of creative genius (here’s to you, Steve Jobs) into an astonishingly good-looking silver box that essentially runs my law practice, gives me my news, shows me funny videos of people falling off chairs, and provides endless reams of (electronic) paper for the thousands of novels that I will never write.

But, for me, the love for Apple ends there: because, I, unlike most everyone else in my life, have not ever purchased an iPhone, and I do not think that I ever will.  If you’re a practicing attorney, you can buy yourself a MacBook Pro, download some free office suite software (I use LibreOffice), get a DropBox account, and be halfway home.  This computer will do everything you need it to do and will do it fast.  But, if you ask me, you can do so much better for yourself than an iPhone.  Now, I know there are some people out there — a few of them are friends of mine — who are shocked (and, dare I say: disappointed) that I would not buy into Apple just a little bit more by getting an iPhone.  There is almost, for these folks, an expectation that, once I take a bite of the Apple, I am supposed to have the whole thing.  For me, that has just not been the case.

And, here are the three reasons I do not like the iPhone:

First, the screen size is too small.  Even with the upgrade on the latest iPhone model, the screen on my HTC Rezound is a lot bigger.  This means that I can actually use my smart phone to browse the web, read and compose emails, and watch videos, without sacrificing a lot of quality or comfort.  My screen is not as big as the new Samsung Galaxy Note‘s, but it is bigger than an iPhone screen.  Why is the screen on iPhones so small?  I’ve heard that it’s because iPhones are supposed to be small enough that you can use them with one hand.  Well, I prefer to use the two hands I have, if it means looking at a screen that does not require me to scroll back and forth all day just to read a sentence on a website.

Second, I do not see what an iPhone does that an Android phone cannot do.  And yet, the marketing behind iPhones seems to suggest that iPhones are uniquely qualified to be your phone of choice. There are literally dozens of applications for anything I could ever ask my Rezound to do.  And, all the major technology companies that I know of — including Evernote, Dropbox, Google (Drive), even the beloved Instagram — offer both iPhone and Android versions of their mobile applications.  In short, I do not understand what makes the iPhone so special, even as its being ‘special’ seems to be its only attraction.

Third, in my world, Google has taken over.  I use Google products for most aspects of my life and my law practice.  Blank fee agreements are in my Google Drive; appointments are listed on my Google Calendar; some client questions come to my GMail inbox; other client questions go to my Google Voice mailbox; and, all the news I read each day is accumulated in my Google Reader . . . or, was.  Why, then, would I buy a phone that does not offer built-in compatibility with Google?  Google, as software, far exceeds any of the hardware that the iPhone has to offer.  The Rezound’s processors, as well as the processors of a lot of modern Android phones, are as good, if not better, than the iPhone’s.  So, most Android phones can compete with the iPhone in terms of speed and reliability. But, the Android does do something that the iPhone does not: it syncs seamlessly with Google, no questions asked.  And I know from my experience with the MacBook, that not all Apple products work all that well with those of their primary competitor.

So, in short, I love my MacBook Pro. But, because my Android phone can do everything an iPhone can do, and does a lot of it better, it will remain my phone of choice, no matter what new edition of the iPhone is coming out next month.

The second portion of the show will cover the new service Google Takeout, which provides an easy way to extract your data from online-Google apps like Google Reader, Google Circles, and more. Whether you know it or not, seems like everything is stored online nowadays. Tune in to The Kennedy Mighell Report to keep up with Internet technology and the cloud.

The post Software By Subscription and More appeared first on Law Technology Today.

Music and lyrics by: W. Luther, A. Mayo, M. Green and C.M. Lindsey, recorded by Tim McGraw.

This is another great guest post from Beth Flynn of the Ohio State University Leadership Center. Today Beth is providing us with a 10 step process for instituting lasting change:

1. Build trust
2. Create a unified spearhead team
3. Establish a pressing need for the change to be implemented
4. Formulate a clear unifying vision
5. Build and implement a specific strategy
6. Share the vision often
7. Enable and equip all shareholders to implement change effort as top priority
8. Create and recognize improvement, big and small.
9. Deepen change, making sure all systems, policies, and training promote the change
10. Keep and create systems that foster open communication, listening, reviewing, and adjusting (Horsager, 2010 p.267)

From: Horsager, D. (2010). The trust edge: how top leaders gain faster results, deeper relationships, and a stronger bottom line. Minneapolis: Summerside Press.  The Trust Edge is available from the OSU Leadership Center. Click here to borrow this resource or any other resource. Once you are on the OSU website, click on the Spectrum icon.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is inspiring others to take a leadership role that empowers the world.

To begin receiving Beth’s Leadership Moments, please click here.

21st Century Leadership Series: These professional development opportunities are open to current and aspiring leaders interested in increasing their leadership knowledge and skills. Held on the campus of The Ohio State University in Columbus, this leadership series is designed with relevant solutions to current leadership issues. Certificates of participation are available for individuals seeking professional development hours.

Thanks Beth for another great tip that will help us bring about change as long as this world keeps on turning!

Prepare your pitch.

Having an elevator pitch will help you approach networking with confidence. Your pitch should describe who you are, what your practice areas and services are, who your clients are and how they benefit from your services, what value you bring to your clients, and how you differ from other firms. The more you practice your pitch, the more confident you will feel and appear.

Set goals.

Prepare by setting goals. Know exactly what you want to get out of your networking and the individuals you meet. This will better direct your efforts by helping you identify those who can help you and by asking the right questions.

Do your due diligence.

Prior to attending a networking event, take some time to learn about who might also be in attendance. If this is a group-based event, take a look at the membership list and find those individuals you would like to connect with. That way, you can attend with a purpose to seek out those individuals, thus giving yourself a task to replace any unwanted anxiety. If you are going to a speaking event, research the speakers and learn something about the topic. Use that information to help you prepare open-ended questions and talking points to strike up conversations with others.

Start with your current network.

Find opportunities among your current network to practice networking. Being in a familiar place and among familiar faces will alleviate your fears. You might join a law school or college alumni group, network among people on your child’s sports team, or ask your current contacts to connect you with others. This also works well when you attend unfamiliar events. If you have a contact there, ask them to introduce you to other attendees.

Look for others like you.

Approaching a group of people can be especially nerve wracking. Instead, look for other people standing alone. It is likely those people are also trying to muster up the courage to approach others. Use that as an opportunity to introduce yourself. You might then partner up with that person to meet additional people.

Use good body language and listening skills.

When approaching others, make eye contact and smile. While engaged in conversation, continue to make eye contact, don’t look beyond or away from the person as if you would rather be speaking to someone else. Use a welcoming and open stance to remain approachable by others. Employ active and empathetic listening techniques by asking informational questions, open-ended follow up questions, and showing genuine curiosity. Know when to stop talking (i.e. when your listener’s eyes glaze over or his/her feet turn away from you) and to steer the conversation back to the other person.

Wear your nametag.

Wearing a nametag makes you appear more approachable. With a nametag, others know you belong at that particular event and aim to meet people. Others are more likely to recall your name and firm when it can be viewed multiple times during one conversation. Because we shake hands with our right hand, affixing your nametag to your right lapel will help place your name in others’ direct line of sight.

. . .

As a featured member benefit, the Massachusetts Bar Association is providing you with the ideal opportunity to employ these tips and practice your networking skills at their FREE “Summer Networking Series” beginning on June 13.

This post originally appeared in the Massachusetts Bar Association’s eJournal.

– Lyrics, music and recorded by Parry Gripp.

Gerry Purdy PHD, an expert on wireless technologies, has made a prediction. In the future, you will own three devices:

• a smartphone (to make calls, check on email and messages and do light web browsing);
• a tablet (to do more review of content, more serious web browsing and messaging); and
• a desktop or notebook PC device (to create original content that is read on other devices).

What is driving his prediction? For one, mobile device sales (smartphones, iPads) already exceed those of desktops/laptops. Secondly, mobile web traffic is about to exceed desk-based web use. We are a mobile, connected world and we want applications and devices that enable our lifestyle. Furthermore, iPads represent lawyers taking charge and gaining access to technology that does not involve having to deal with the law firm IT department and all their restrictive policies.

The other factor is the ease of use of the iPad as compared to traditional PC-based technology. The iPad has exceeded everyone’s expectations on these criteria. Apps which traditionally run from free to $9.99 (and in some cases more) place incredible processing power in the hands of users. Games, book readers, word processing, presentation software, business apps – there are literally hundreds of thousands from which to choose. News apps from the NYT, BBC, AP and others place you in the center of the “what’s happening now” world. TweetDeck and Facebook allow you to comment and connect with the Twitterverse about what is happening now. Wi-Fi or cellular data plans connect your iPad to the world. Inexpensive online storage is available via Dropbox, iCloud and others.

Courtesy of such online synchronization and storage services, you can have the latest version of your documents, photographs and more available wherever you have a web connection. You can embed and present graphics, videos and more in presentations using Keynote for court, mediations or meetings. Gray’s Anatomy app places medical-school quality illustrations at your fingertips for evidentiary purposes. Contacts, calendars and reminders can all be synched and available to you whether you are on an iPad, iPhone or Mac. Photos and videos can be viewed on the iPad’s “retinal” display that has more pixels than you have receptors in your eye, producing a stunning visual experience. Social media content can be easily accessed, updated and created in different apps and shared with the world.

There are apps for organizing your information in myriad ways. Evernote, an online notebook app, is a world-class organizer of all types of information from text to web pages to images and videos – and unbelievably, it is free. Evernote is your traditional paper notebook – on steroids! Wunderlist is a task manager that synchs your ‘to-dos’ across your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone and Android devices. You can use it to collaborate and co-ordinate tasks amongst team members as well as share shopping lists with your spouse.

Apps such as LogMeIn and GoToMyPC can connect you to your office desktop from wherever you may be. Kayak, a travel app, can help you book flights, hotels and more to those distant lands. Tired of typing? Dragon Dictate and other apps can do voice recognition or voice recording. Feel like note taking the old-fashioned way? Penultimate is a stylus note taking app that also allows you to draw in colors, insert a photo and draw on it and organize your handwritten notes.

Ultimately it is all about the apps on the iTunes and Apps store. They open up a whole new world of software and media and place that in your hands on the iPad, allowing you to do whatever it is that you wish to do.

This article originally appeared in the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia branch’s publication BarTalk.

Now, if you’re thinking of settling upon one specific practice area, you need not limit yourself to that degree. Niche practice is representative of a whittling down of practice areas, and not necessarily the elimination of all but one. Focusing on three or four practice areas is a perfectly reasonable way to build your niche, especially if you can select practice areas that you can cross-sell, or set yourself up with referral pipelines from practitioners in other, complimentary fields. The trick is to make sure that you don’t select too many practice areas; don’t take the determination of 3 or 4 practice areas as license to choose 6 or 7 others, as well. Certainly, if something is not working, and you want to move away from that something, eventually, that’s your prerogative; however, you’ve got to be sure that you’re not working in too many areas, to the point where you’re cannibalizing your time and energy, and spreading yourself too thin to be effective, or to evince a real expertise.

There are some further reasons why it makes sense to choose a niche practice, over a general practice. For one, it’s difficult to sell everything. The message becomes muddled; and, it’s difficult for clients and referral sources to find what they need through the press of your marketing. If your focus is fixed, your clients and referral sources will be able to more easily divine your purposes, to see whether they can align their needs to your services. Neither do referrals work particularly well in a general practice construct. Think about it: If a potential client is looking for a divorce, your referral source is not going to say, ‘You should go see Jane Doe, she does all kinds of stuff, and I’m sure she handles divorce, too’. Neither is that likely to sell the potential client on your services. The better proposition is for referral source to tell a potential client, ‘I don’t handle that; but, you need to see my friend, Jane Doe. She focuses on divorce, and does a ton of work in that arena, and does it well. Give her a call’. It’s clear which sales pitch is more impressive; and, the latter is that choice because it generates from the development of a niche practice. Of course, this does not mean that you need to reject every case that comes in that is not under the umbrella of your niche. Nike is known for selling sneakers; but, they sell other things, as well. If you’ve ever purchased Nike track pants, it’s likely that you heard of the shoes first. And, even if you’re not going to offer the service your potential client is looking for, capture the momentum by referring the potential client out to another niche practitioner who handles that area. Once you get known for some thing, or a few things, it is much easier to gain leads, and to convert those leads; half the battle is won already. Potential clients want to access attorneys they believe to be experts in the field. Referring attorneys are looking for competent lawyers to refer cases to, because it makes them look good, as well. Another reason to focus on niches is that practice areas in modern times (due to the build-up of precedent, government regulation and court rules and the advance of technology, among other factors) are more administratively complex than ever before. At that point, the clear advantage of niche practice becomes a simple equation: fewer practice areas = more specialization = reduced risk of malpractice. You’re far more likely to have a thorough understanding of something in which you’ve immersed yourself. True general practitioners, who take on whatever cases come through the door, are continually reinventing the wheel. While it may be an exciting intellectual exercise for some, the plain fact is that it’s not efficient when legal cases are viewed as commodities, and it creates a significant risk of malpractice for attorneys (especially those with weak support systems) who are working outside of their areas of knowledge. The Gordian Knot, at least as it exists in Massachusetts, is that you’ve got to be very careful about the language you use to advertise your niche practice, lest ye be judged by the standard of an expert in the field in a potential disciplinary action. If you are looking at consciously marketing yourself as having some kind of specialization, check your local rules before doing so; Massachusetts’ are here.

If you believed before, or if you now believe, that settling upon a niche is the way to go, as respects your new, or existing law firm, the question is: What niche do I choose? Well, if you’re just starting this endeavor, and you’re coming out of law school, you don’t have a lot to go on. You’ve got to think back to your law school classes, what you wrote for the law review, your more interesting internship experiences, which mentors seemed to enjoy their chosen fields most, etc. And, keep in mind that, not everything you’re going to try will work out the first time; you’ll move things around, and try new things, until you figure out what will work. Getting it right the first time is not the main thing; getting it right in the end is where you need to be at. For attorneys already in practice, it’s a different consideration, when you’ve had some real world experience. If you have been working for someone else, you’ll want to consider whether: and which of your practice areas you’ve liked best; your existing book of business yields any hot spots; you were jealous of what satisfaction your other colleagues derived from their work; certain practice areas seemed particularly popular with clients; you can get referral pipelines established, and in what areas; and, etc. If you’ve been working on your own, or as the managing partner of a law firm, you have an idea, already, of what has been working, and what has not been working. Maybe you already know, as you’re thinking of what areas you’d like to whittle down to, or which areas you’d like to settle upon, which generate more income, and which are dogs. You’ll have statistics in place to help guide your decision. And, if you’re looking at opening new practice areas, it’s a matter of looking at potential and projected revenue, in order to make an educated decision, based on a rough approximation of your financial wherewithal. Intertwining the discussion, like a ribbon does a May pole, is the consideration that, in all likelihood, what you’re attempting to do has been done by someone else before. Therefore, part of your process when selecting down practice areas should be to address your colleagues who have entered the road before you. If your machinations are still something of a secret, you’ll want to find persons with discretion; but, it will help to sound others whose situations you’d like to emulate when you’re making business decisions of this order — and, I’ll speak more about this later.

Probably the major consideration, however, when you’re reducing to a niche is the same major consideration for the vast majority of other moves you make: money. Wu Tang is fond of the acronym ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ = Cash Rules Everything Around Me. And, don’t it appear to be the truth. So, when you’re trying to determine where (in what areas) you’d like to practice, think about the associated costs. Initially, there are several cost considerations you should address when determining your niche; and, a starting, non-exhaustive list, would look something like this: What is it going to cost you to get malpractice insurance in the niche field(s)? Some practice areas yield more claims than others; and, that, and other factors, would contribute to higher premiums for certain practice aggregations. For some examples: there are a significantly high number of claims in the family law arena by total claim percentage; it is difficult to get a policy to cover a patent practice — and, when you get it, it’ll be expensive; and, ‘moonlighting’, or ‘part-time’, policies can be difficult to get, because many underwriters don’t feel like attorneys who are not working in the full-time practice of law are invested enough in their situations to merit the extension of trust represented by an insurance policy. While the cost of a malpractice insurance policy, in and of itself, would likely not deter the lawyer from selecting a specific practice area, it does add to the total cost of the move, and therefore merits discussion. There is also the matter of overhead; and, overhead considerations can be very different for different practice areas, and even within workflows within the same practice area. If you’re doing real estate closings, for example, are you mostly working with electronic documents, or are you printing a ton? Your overhead will look very different depending on the answer to that question. If you’re not printing, perhaps you’re mostly paperless, maybe even virtual — if that’s case, your technology investment is likely not insignificant. Will you require in-person support staff? If not, How much will virtual alternatives run you? Or, if you’re doing it all yourself, how much will that cut into your billable time, and your profits? Will you require a brick-and-mortar office, or can you work from home, or a virtual office? You must determine, as well, whether you will be fronting costs for cases, and to what extent. For certain practice areas, having the funds available to front costs for cases is essential; ready examples that come to mind are medical malpractice (most especially) and personal injury. There are also differences (though not substantial or overly costly ones anymore, given the rise of the internet) in the way that practices are marketed. Very broadly speaking, it’s a different game when you’re marketing an elderlaw practice, versus when you’re marketing a business law firm focused on entrepreneurial clients. Depending on specific marketing choices you make in those categories, you’ll be laying out different amounts of cash, and time. You should create and manage a marketing budget to get a handle on your costs. This all counts toward your overhead. There is also a cost associated with learning particular practice areas, into which you’d like to shift, if you don’t already know them. You’ll have to attend CLEs, and access CLE materials, all of which will cost you money. If you’re lucky enough to find an attorney to shadow, who has experience of a practice area, although that time spent is invaluable, it’s still spent time, and not time that you’re billing. As you’re developing your knowledge, and practical skills, in a new area, you’re also more likely to discount your services, because it will take you longer to craft a quality representation (and, specifically, certain documents) than it would for a more seasoned attorney in the field; charging a fuller rate would be unfair to the client (who is not paying for an apprentice), and would not allow you to be competitive in the marketplace, at first. There is a definitive cost to this sort of skills acquisition — one that should be factored into your choice of niche. I’ve alluded to this just above, in the context of marketing; but, it is essential to create and maintain a budget for your practice, in order to assure that you are not met with significant cost overruns; and, this is particularly true when you are engaging a new endeavor, and are unaware of some of the hidden and associated costs that may ride with your new strategy. Although, it’s not as simple and true as a basic mathematical equation, there are certain things that you can do to keep your costs under control, as you engage a new niche; however, you have to have some intelligible idea of what those potential costs will be, first. Of course, there is a brighter side of the money street: you’ll be able to generate revenue from your new niche(s) — hopefully sooner, than eventually; and, preferably more, than less. But, in order to effectively predict what sort of income your new/revised practice may bring in, you’ve got to get a handle on some factors respecting how you make money. For starters, you’ll need to know how and when you get paid. Much of this will be governed by the fee agreement upon which your client engages you. Will you be paid on an hourly basis, upon a contingency or by a flat fee, and in what denominations? Or, will you create a hybrid arrangement based on certain of these options? Will you unbundle your representation? Is there a statutory or rules-based fee applied to your work? Knowing how you get paid, will help to determine when you get paid, and how often. Not only, then, will you be able to arrive at a more accurate forecast of your revenue, you’ll have a better understanding of how it flows in; and, that ‘how’ question also contemplates the ways in which your clients will pay you. You’ll likely take cash, and probably checks. How about credit cards? You should also take retainers, where you can — especially as that is the only guarantee that your client will pay you. Certainly, it will help to have some idea of what you will get paid, as you embark upon the narrower path. Revenue projection is a difficult thing to manage; and so, we’ve posted some tips on going about it, here.

If you view yourself as a lawyer who is also a savvy businessperson, the money question circulates around everything, including the forthcoming points; however, I believe that the remainder of this discussion merits coverage mostly disentangled from the monetary considerations. Whatever practice areas you decide to access, you won’t be occupying that market space all by your lonesome. So, in order to trump your competition, you’ve got to know your competition. Think about which firms you’re competing with, and where. Is geography one of your main challenge points? Or, do clashes occur over target clients, regardless of where they reside in your jurisdiction (and, perhaps because your online access options are so effective)? Are you marketing in certain spaces that are already occupied by your competitors (do they have larger, more colorful advertisements than you)? You can only begin to craft your marketing posture when you know what your competition is doing . . . Only then will you be able to steal what they’re doing well, and improve upon what they’re doing poorly. Part of this is understanding your client base, and what they want, and need. Jeff Lantz, of Esquire Interactive, makes this point in a recent podcast episode of mine, in the context of website development. Everything is harder in a vacuum; and so, it makes sense, when you’re engaging your market research, to make use of your existing contacts, including your mentors. Just as you would shadow an attorney experienced in a particular niche practice in which you were interested, you should try to sound your contacts in that area about what the competition looks like. Certainly, some lawyers will be reticent to supply any information, and you’ll only get half the story from others (since, after all, you’re liable to become a serious competitor); but, in toto you should be able to acquire enough useful information to supplement the market research you do on your own. This will give you a better idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

There are a number of levels to the idea of a niche practice. Many practitioners (probably the majority) will shed down to two or three or four practice areas. (In fact, many general practitioners mostly practice in a few areas, anyway: they’re just afraid to advertise that fact, since they’re concerned over missing that one big case in an area for which they don’t advertise; or, if they’re looking for referrals out, that’s probably a more legitimate excuse.) Other lawyers will settle upon one practice area, like family law — which would be a broad choice. Still others, fewer the further we ride this chain down, will focus on a super niche within an already-specific practice area. The example I most often use is that of Chris Milne, a local attorney who concentrates in drafting special needs trusts. There are other examples out there, certainly; but, the point is that, a hyper-focused practice can be successful, as well, if you can isolate a significant, unmet need — otherwise, you won’t get very busy. But, if you can isolate and service that significant need, there is tremendous value in being the go-to-person in that discrete area. Will Hornsby, staff counsel for the American Bar Association, gave an interesting presentation on this topic of practice niches for one of our Lunch Hour Legal Marketing webinars during our last program cycle. You can access the Powerpoint and audio, here.

In the end, when you’re developing a niche practice, you’ve got to take the longview. While it is very difficult to turn away clients, and as it seems counterintuitive, while you’re supposed to be growing your practice, in the long run . . . it may be just what you need to do.

. . .

Liner Notes

Now, Jimmy Buffett — he found a niche, and ran with it. He’s created an entire industry of himself based upon this laidback, island persona . . . because who wants to work anyway. Am I right?

But, it wasn’t always this way. The loyal Parrotheads and parakeets did not always follow James around to various latitudes, like new age Deadheads. Jimmy Buffett’s initial forays into popular music did not yield anywhere near the commercial success of his second career. Jimmy Buffett’s first couple albums were, in fact, country records, upon which he certainly sounds almost unrecognizable as compared to his latter day self. I mean, there are hints of the late period Buffett; but, it’s a very inconsistent sound to what you’ll hear at a Jimmy Buffett concert these days. You’re more likely to find a pedal steel guitar than a steel drum on an early Jimmy Buffett record. I actually like the original Jimmy Buffett sound better than what he developed to sell records; but, you won’t be surprised to hear that, if you’re a regular reader of this blog: you’ll already have known my predilection for country music. If you’d like to hear what I consider the exemplar of early period Jimmy Buffet, take a listen to ‘Rockefeller Square’ from ‘High Cumberland Jubilee’. Buffett’s late period sound became known as ‘gulf and western‘; but, for me, it’s a little bit too much ‘gulf‘, and a little too little ‘western‘.

But, I suppose that all things come full circle. So it is that the eventual singer of songs you know by heart, such as ‘Cheeseburger in Paradise’, ‘Fins’, ‘A Pirate Looks at Forty’ (check out the great Jack Johnson cover, too), ‘Mañana’, ‘Little Miss Magic’, ‘Margaritaville’, and more . . . has become the muse of choice for modern country music. These shenanigans all started when Alan Jackson covered ‘Margaritaville‘ (with Buffett), and then collaborated (again with Buffett) on ‘It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere’. (It is.) From there, the floodgates opened, to the point where Buffett’s influence on the most popular, modern country artists is clear – listen to Zac Brown Band’s ‘Toes’. Even my dog Brad Paisley (who is nothing else, if not his own man) gets into the act, having recruited Blake Shelton for ‘Don’t Drink the Water’. (Why do country singers love traveling to Mexico so much? Aren’t they afraid of becoming drug mules?) And, that was after Shelton released his own ‘Some Beach’. Hell, if any artist is, Kenny Chesney is the modern day Jimmy Buffett. ‘Life On a Rock’ is pretty much a Jimmy Buffett album — which is not to say I don’t like a solid derivative effort: ‘Pirate Flag’ and ‘When I See This Bar’ are particularly good songs from that record.

Maybe it’s because Jimmy Buffett and country artists share some of the same mainline themes (drinking, causing trouble, going on vacation, livin’, lovin’ and losin’), or maybe it’s something else . . . but — it’s clear to me that Jimmy Buffett has achieved more of an influence over country music having left the genre, than he would have been able to accomplish staying in.

(Still, I can’t bring myself to hate on him for selling out. He absolved himself from many sins by teaming up with the immortal James Taylor on a song that is as long as it is haunting: ‘False Echoes (Havana 1921)’. . . . But, wait: JT sings about Mexico, too. What am I missing here? I mean, other than a brick of cocaine hidden in a Bible?)

– Lyrics and music by Simon Finn and Errol Reid, recorded by China Black.

It is hard to imagine but no search engine existed for the web until 1993. Of course, when it comes to doing research on the web, the one search site that everyone knows today is Google. But Google itself didn’t become prominent until 2000. Furthermore, Google is by no means the only or perhaps even the best search engine to use in every context. Compounding the problem, a web page of search hits may not display the research results that you are seeking – simply because so many websites are using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to try to land their website within the first two pages of results. Accordingly, you need to know what other search engines are out there along with their attributes in order to carry out any real research over the Internet.

These sites vary from searching websites to travel sites to medical information, books and scholarly articles. You can search to see what people are saying or search news services. You can even search sites that will post your question to live people (gasp!) and get back real answers. You can search items for sale, either by suppliers or by individuals. You can search for specialized knowledge (such as science information), or even people.

There are websites such as FactBites [www.factbites.com] which search encyclopedias and Wikipedia to provide you with factual information (not search results based on popularity, which is what Google and Bing do). In terms of real research, this is a great starting point.

There are search engines that don’t just display lists of results but also display a “Tag Cloud” with the size of a word (search term) being larger or smaller by the number of hits relative to that term. You can see the results by “hovering” over the words in the tag cloud. Example: Quintura.

There are sites such as Biography.com that allow you to search 25,000+ biographies by name, keyword and profession. Or search LinkedIn for current information on 100 million people.

You can search for sounds on FindSounds.com and find an amazing variety, from alligators to windshield wipers and zebras.
Quotations and famous speeches can be searched, read and heard.

You can even search out search engines from other countries.

When you are searching and lost and can’t seem to find yourself, there are any number of roads that you can take… who knows where they will lead you.

This article originally appeared in the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia branch’s publication BarTalk.

Below are some of the top quotes from the show, per session:

-‘Don’t hide your fees; instead, be transparent, and demonstrate your value to clients.’

Mark Britton
Founder and CEO, Avvo
‘Ten Opportunities Lawyers Miss in Online Marketing’

It is still the rare law firm website that features a pricing chart. While pricing legal services is not the same as attaching value to a 1999 Honda Civic, price transparency and price certainty are important things to modern consumers, including consumers of legal services. Attorneys should conceive of their pricing matrix as part of their sales pitch.

-‘Repurpose your content. Each piece of content can, and should, be used multiple times.’

Cynthia MacCausland
Principal, Law Offices of Cynthia E. MacCausland
‘Content Is Still King: Marketing by Publication’

With the proliferation of free publication tools (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, etc.), there are no shortage of places to publish your content. And, you should probably publish your content more than one time, depending on the medium, since information streams are so heavily populated these days. You should also consider repurposing your content: an article can become a blog post, you can create an infographic and/or make a presentation.

-‘Plan to reevaluate your social media presence. The technology changes so quickly.’

Lesley Ridge
Digital and Social Media Strategist
‘The Social Web: New Media Marketing for Lawyers’

So true; and, I had this same thought as I was constantly revising my Twitter book, due to Twitter’s impressive ability to consistently make major changes to its platform, just when I had a publication deadline. The pace of technology in 2013 is staggering; and, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But, you do have to harness each of the social media tools you’re going to use. You should review your settings every now and then, to make sure you’re getting the most out of your profiles; and, if you follow the right blogs, you should be able to get updates on a regular basis respecting important features upgrades.

‘Online readers don’t like to read the way lawyers write. Use short text, bullet points and bold headers, as opposed to prose.’

Todd Curlett
Senior Business Development Consultant, FindLaw
‘More and Better Clients: Five Ways to Make Internet Marketing Deliver’

Guilty.

-‘YouTube provides HD distribution for free on the world’s largest search engine.’

James Ringrose
CEO, Real Cool TV
‘Using Video to Market Professional Services’

The vast majority of law firms have not yet caught the video bug; but, it’s becoming a more important part of online marketing every day. Professional video production services may not cost as much as you think they do; but, even if you do it yourself, if you invest in the right equipment, and get a YouTube channel set up, you can do quite well in video marketing. The integration of Google services, and the rise of Google + means that social, including YouTube videos, is intertwined with search like never before. If you want to take a look at a method for integrating video, check out what fellow LPM Tip contributor Stephen Seckler has done at his website.

-‘Websites are about products, and are static. Blogs are about people, and are dynamic.’

Amy Ullman
Inbound Marketing Consultant, HubSpot
‘SEO Tactics for Getting Local Buzz’

. . . which is why many attorneys situate their blogs at the main page of their websites: to get consistent content turnover. However, the point is, nevertheless, well-made: websites represent what you offer in the way of specific services; blogs highlight what you offer in the way of expertise. With the increasing use of traditional blog platforms for website creation (WordPress being the prime example), it’s easy to think of your blog and your website as one entity. However, keeping in mind the dichotomy presented above will allow you to present a more coherent view of your services.

-‘The cost of obtaining clients is high. The cost of retaining clients is far lower. CRM tools help with client retention.’

Morris Singer
Litigation Consultant, The Boston Expert Witness Group
‘Finding, Tracking and Converting Prospects: The Use of CRM Systems in Legal’

Many lawyers have their heads down looking for new clients. But, it’s true that your best sources of business are your existing clients, including the referrals that they make to you. So, you’ve really got to put in the effort to stay in touch with your clients in ways that are relevant, and that show that you continue to care about them and their needs. They’ll pass the value of that connection along to your next potential clients. A clear majority of solo and small firm attorneys do very little to track their client relationships from a marketing standpoint; but, CRM tools, even non-legal-specific tools, can go a long way to helping you to leverage that aspect of your client relations.

. . .

For almost all of the buzz surrounding the conference, you can check out the still-active #LHLM hashtag Twitter feed. To connect with the presenters and conference participants, Inside Legal’s Twitter List is your go-to spot.

This post originally appeared in the Massachusetts Bar Association’s eJournal.

. . .

Sitting in a hot, crowded room, on the final day of MCLE’s annual ‘Hanging Your Shingle’ program, I was dreading the final presentation of the day: office backup and disaster preparedness. It was not until Patriots’ Day of this year that I realized what it all meant. Following the initial shock and horror I experienced over the Boston Marathon bombings, and the sorrow I felt for victims and their loved ones, I realized that one of the bombings had occurred right in front of my office.

I had two court dates that same week, which I had long been preparing for and anticipating. I checked my voicemail and realized that, despite the tragedy, my client’s legal matters still moved forward. What was I to do?

This guest blog post is intended to help other solo practitioners by way of do’s and don’t’s that I learned from my own personal experience following the Marathon bombings:

I had read somewhere that 50% of lawyers give out their cellphone numbers, and that about 50% do not. Until recently, I had only given out my number to existing clients, and I did not state my alternative contact number on my voicemail. I realized how critically important it was to leave my cellphone number on my answering machine, despite my concerns about separating my work from my personal life. My concerns had always centered around answering the phone at the wrong time, and speaking off-the-cuff, without having the client’s file in front of me. In the time following the Marathon bombings, I quickly realized that, for clients, access to their attorney was the most important thing, even if I didn’t have their files at hand. But, there are a number of parties to each case; so, during the week of the disaster, I also called each court in which I had to appear, and each opposing counsel I was to appear against, and explained where my office was and what the situation was. (I ended up being locked out of my office for about two weeks.) And, here is why it is critically important to maintain good relationships with opposing counsel: if I had not worked together with a particular opposing counsel to facilitate discovery in one of the cases on which I was scheduled to appear during the week of the Marathon, I would not have been able to call him and get a continuance.

After I handled my most immediate scheduling concerns, the next question became: Where would I work? I knew I had to keep the train moving; but, I didn’t quite know how. So, I reached out to the folks at the Social Law Library, to see if I could set up shop there for the rest of the week. They were extremely gracious, and allowed me to. In addition to the staff of the Social Law Library, I would also like to extend my thanks to the colleagues who wrote notes of support, offered their own spaces and made other efforts to help me out.

In addition to the acquisition of short-term office space, my use of remote access technology also helped me to continue to practice; and, I would urge any solo practitioner out there to obtain appropriate remote access software systems for their law firms, as well. Without my remote access tools, I would have been in deep trouble, and unable to get at my files, which were behind the police cordon. And, I should take a moment to thank my law clerk, as well, since he’s the one who makes sure that all of my paperwork is scanned in electronically. This process may seem painstaking, anal-retentive and difficult to stay on top of; however, it is well worth the time and effort when your cards are down, and the unexpected has occurred.

There are, though, some things that I wish I could have done better. For one, I should have had a smartphone. I didn’t want to give in, and get a smartphone, just because everybody else has one; but, I realize now that not having remote access to email handy just doesn’t work. The second thing I learned from my experience is that I should have reached out to my clients sooner than I did, to inform them of my office’s proximity to the bomb site, and to tell them that I would be working at various locations for the forseeable future. I had assumed that, since they had previously been to my office, they would have figured it out. But, you know what happens when you make assumptions . . .

I hope that this blog post serves to help another solo attorney out there. And, I truly hope that this never happens again.

Lyrics and Music by: Chris Porter/Howard New/Peter Gordeno, recorded by  Leon Jackson.

This is another great guest post by Beth Flynn of the Ohio State University Leadership Center.  This time Beth is looking at Creativity (and leadership).

• Myth 1:  Creativity is only needed at the top.
• TRUTH: In today’s business environment, creativity applies to everyone.

• Myth 2:  People are creative (or not) depending on their job or role.
• TRUTH:  You role has nothing to do with your creativity.

• Myth 3:  Creativity is “born:” it can’t be developed.
• TRUTH: Yes it absolutely can.

• MYTH 4:  Creativity isn’t my responsibility.
• TRUTH:  Today, creativity is everyone’s responsibility.

• MYTH 5:  Creativity can’t be managed or harnessed.
• TRUTH: Developing creativity is the primary role you will play as a leader in the twenty-first-century business world.

• Myth 6:  My technical skills and experience are enough.
• TRUTH: Creative problem solving, original thought, and imagination have become the currency for success in the new world of business…and life (Linkner, 2011, p. 207-209).

From:  Linkner, J (2011).  Disciplined dreaming: a proven system to drive breakthrough creativity.  San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass. Disciplined dreaming is available from the OSU Leadership Center.  Click here to borrow this resource.

Learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is inspiring others to take a leadership role that empowers the world at http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu . To begin receiving Leadership Moments, or to update your information, please click here to access OSU’s Mailing List.

Thanks Beth for another great leadership post on how all of us can move past the myths in becoming more creative.  I can say ..every time you are near I get creative!

You may also want to take a look at a recent article from Attorney at Work titled “Should Lawyers Connect with Competitors?” and note the links to other pertinent articles on lawyers’ use of LinkedIn at the end of the article.

The ‘Third Annual Super Marketing Conference: Accelerate Your Marketing’ will focus on web marketing.  As always, there is an impressive lineup of speakers covering subjects germane to lawyer advertising online.  Avvo Founder and CEO Mark Britton will be the keynote speaker, and will address ‘Ten Opportunities Lawyers Miss in Online Marketing’.

Check out full conference agenda.

Interested CBA members can get online access via the Massachusetts Bar Association’s On Demand portal.  Select the $49 discount rate for co-sponsoring organizations when you RSVP.

The event page is accessible here: www.lunchhourlegalmarketing.com.

A 700 lawyer private law firm in China — Zhong Lun Law Firm — has opened an office in New York.  The firm announced in a press release that the purpose of the office is to help American clients investing or doing business in China, and also to help Chinese clients conduct business and make investments in America.

Two attorneys with degrees from top American law schools — Philip Zhang and T.K. Chang – will head the firm’s NYC office. They will be supported by  over 40 partners in the firm’s worldwide offices who have American law degrees.  Thanks to varying time zones, they will be able to support clients 24 hours a day.

So many of you are reading this and thinking that this is not a threat to your firm, but rather to the huge firms which handle international law.  True enough.  But contemplate for a minute what happens when this foreign law firm starts trolling the waters and catching clients formerly netted by these large firms.  Those firms will in turn need to find a new fishing spot.  Maybe your fishing spot.  And it will take a whole lot more fish of the size you catch to replace the ones they will be losing.

Where will you fish next?

The post Big Time Competition Just Arrived appeared first on PA Law Practice Management by Ellen Freedman.

Expo Hall from 10am – 3pm

From 10-3 visit with national and local law practice management, business services, and technology companies in the Law Practice Management & Technology Expo. See more and find out who is coming in the Expo Guide.

Door prizes will include: $100 American Express Gift Card, compliments of Practical Law Company, LLC; iPad Mini, compliments of LexisNexis Firm Manager; Four $25 Starbucks Gift Cards, compliments of LexisNexis Firm Manager; Two Lawyer Career Manuals: (1) Direct Examination, a workbook for lawyer career satisfaction and (2) Ask the Career Counselors, answers for lawyers on their lives and life’s work, compliments of Under Advisement; Software package including WordPerfect Office X6, Perfect Authority and PDF Fusion, compliments of Corel; 12 months free subscription to Smokeball, compliments of Smokeball; Kindle, compliments of AAA; and more!

Complimentary lunch and snacks will be available in the Expo Hall.

Complimentary CLE from 11am-12pm and 1pm-2pm

Join us for complimentary CLE presentations at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. sponsored by LexisNexis Firm Manager and Practical Law Company.

11am – 12pm - Moneyball for Lawyers: Using Data to Make Your Firm Competitive

Long gone are the days of an “if you build it, they will come” law practice. Today’s potential clients are not only savvier about what specific legal services they need, they’re willing to shop around to ensure they’re getting the biggest bang for the buck. Running a competitive firm these days takes management and marketing skills, sure, but it also takes something many lawyers don’t think of: data analysis. Just as the Oakland A’s used player stats to build a winning team in the hit movie Moneyball, so can lawyers take their firm to new levels with inside data. This webinar will teach you how to look at your firm’s stat sheet in a whole new light—and how to use that information to make sound business decisions.  Register Now!

Speaker: Christopher Anderson, LexisNexis Firm Manager

1pm –2pm – This Just In: Keeping Up With Developments in Your Practice Area

Keeping up with cases, codes, regs and news that affects and informs your ability to competently represent your clients can be a daunting task.  Come learn about resources and strategies to get “just in time” information and harness it in your law practice.  Free and fee-based services provide a focused stream of real-time information that can be accessed via the web and mobile platforms.  From do-it-yourself  RSS feeds to professionally edited, curated and produced content portals there are ways to maximize your efforts and minimize time when keeping up with current developments.   Register Now!

Speakers: Ryan Allen, PLC and Catherine Sanders Reach, Director CBA Law Practice Management & Technology

Product Demonstrations at 9:00am, 9:30am, and 3:00pm

Product demonstrations in Charter Hall (first floor) directly before and after the Expo Hours will give you a chance to sit down and get a focused look at some new and favorite technologies. Come watch and learn more about:

• 3:00pm- Avvo Ignite Suite marketing platform
• 9:00am – Corel WordPerfect Office software
• 9:30am – Smokeball Office document management and assembly

This is but a taste of the festivities during CBA Member Appreciation Week. Check out the full week of festivities and please join us!

Just to give you an idea of how bad a year 2012 was in terms of security, here is a brief excerpt:

Data breaches continue to grow in both number and scale. This past year saw major hacks at Zappos (24M customer accounts), Statfor (private U.S. intelligence firm; 5M e-mails), Global Payments (1.5M credit card numbers), LinkedIn (6.5M passwords), eHarmony (1.5M passwords), Yahoo (0.5M passwords), Nationwide Mutual (1.1M customer accounts), and Wyndham Worldwide (600K credit card numbers). According to industry reports, this past year saw a sharp increase in browser-related exploits, such as luring an individual to a trusted website that has been infected with malicious code. Using browser vulnerabilities, attackers can install malware on the target system. In addition, the rise of “bring your own device” policies in the corporate world have led to security challenges for organizations. For example, many large organizations reported that security breaches were caused by their own staff, most commonly through ignorance of security practices.

This past year saw a dramatic increase in the number of breaches from state and local governments. Leading the pack was the South Carolina Department of Revenue, where an employee fell for a phishing e-mail that allowed hackers to steal 75GB of data containing the social security numbers, credit cards, and bank account information for 3.8M residents. The data also contained information about 700,000 businesses. The governor faulted outdated IRS standards, which did not require social security numbers to be encrypted. Another major hack affected the New York State Electric & Gas Company, in which 1.8M customer files were stolen that included social security numbers and some financial information. Investigations of the hack faulted out-of-date data security standards. Other notable breaches occurred at the California Department of Social Services (700K employees’ payroll information), Utah Department of Health (780K citizens’ health information), and the California Department of Child Support Services (800K health and financial records). Many of these attacks could have been prevented by following up-to-date security standards.

No wonder President Obama signed an executive order on February 12, 2013, seeking to strengthen the cyber security of critical infrastructure, by directing the development of a public-private sector cyber security framework, and increasing information sharing between the public and private sector.  If you’ve been following my blog, you’re read my previous posts “Another Cyberattack on a Major U.S. Bank;” “Cyberattacks on U.S. Banks — Are You Safe?;” “Beware Email Messages from Facebook Friends;” and “Trojan Infects 260,000 Android Devices” to name just a few.

It’s a very dangerous computing world.  That means you have to keep up to date on developments.  You need to keep your software updated to plug security holes as they’re discovered.  You need to actually use your shredder.  You need to avoid using public WiFi for accessing confidential information.  You have to train your employees not to click on links or email attachments which are unexpected, regardless of the source.  You should encrypt your laptop hard drive, and use a boot password too.  You should be sure you have enabled the ability to remotely wipe the data from your Smartphone before you put anything on there.  This is just a start off the top of my head.  If you’re not already doing all these things, or if you don’t even know about some of these things, perhaps your starting point should be a simple security audit by a qualified vendor.

The post Cyber Security and Data Privacy appeared first on PA Law Practice Management by Ellen Freedman.

As you can tell, since June is an end-of-compliance month, there is little doubt additional courses will be scheduled.  If no county near you has booked me yet, don’t give up hope.  The fat lady has not yet sung her last note. 

The post Another June Seminar Presentation Scheduled appeared first on PA Law Practice Management by Ellen Freedman.

Allegheny County Bar Association Institute for Gender Equality
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Client Service and Marketing for Women Attorneys Within Ethical Boundaries
8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. (registration 8:00 a.m.)
Register online at www.ACBA.org

Beaver County Bar Association
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Technology Tools to Level the Playing Field for Solo & Small Firm Attorneys
3:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. followed by a reception
Contact the Bar Association for additional details.

Erie County Bar Association
Friday, May 17, 2013
Social Media:  Part of Today’s Client Development and Retention Toolkit
8:15 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.
The Art & Science of Setting and Raising Rates
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.
Survival 101:  Emergency Planning for Your Law Practice
10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Register here.

I am also pleased to be returning to Maryland this year to present at the Maryland State Bar Association Annual Meeting on Friday, June 14, 2013.  The event is being held at the fabulous Clarion Resort Fountainbleau Hotel in Ocean City, MD.   What a great location for June.

Get a Grip! Effectively and Efficiently Administering Your Practice While Making the Most of Your Time
8:30 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
50 Finance Tips in 60 Minutes
9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

If we’ve never had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face, please be sure to stop by after the presentation to introduce yourself!

The post Upcoming Seminar Presentations appeared first on PA Law Practice Management by Ellen Freedman.

1. Lights, Camera, Action: Video

More and more law firm websites are incorporating video. In addition to using multi-media to add interest and engage your visitors, you can fit a lot of content into a short amount of time that does not require someone to read a long article. It can also highlight the real lawyers in your firm and help introduce them to potential clients. This November 2012 article from the American Bar Association on How Lawyers are Using Video has great information on the basic who/where/how/why of law firm videos. If that doesn’t convince you let’s look at some YouTube statistics:

• Over 800 million unique users per month
• More than 20% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices
• 500 years of YouTube videos are watched every day on Facebook, and over 700 YouTube videos are shared on Twitter each minute

A YouTube channel is free. Creating good looking videos will likely require getting help from a videographer. Or, if you want to create educational videos that are a little more “fun’ you can use sites like  goanimate.com or www.xtranormal.com to create an animated video using your own script.

2. Learning Is Fun: Infographics

Infographics are the new way to communicate complex information in a visually appealing way. It takes charts and graphs and punches them up for today’s graphics oriented and attention deficient audience.  Companies like Visual.ly let you subscribe to the service and request a custom infographic through their marketplace. For attorneys looking to add some visual punch to their websites or blogs, the over 25,650 infographics in 27 categories can also be embedded in your website. Simply find one that speaks to your target audience and grab the code. For instance, if you represent green companies you could add a “going green at the office” infographic or if you want to let your clients know to keep their social media presence curbed you could add the “Privacy Fail: Concerns that Face Facebook Users” infographic.

3. Keep It Fresh: Social Media Feeds

Clients not into Twitter? No problem! If you tweet, and wish more of your clients and potential clients were on Twitter,  you might want to take a look at Twylah. Twylah, currently in invitation only beta, is a free (for now) service that turns your tweets into a beautiful, customizable web page with subject groupings, graphics and more.  What might have looked like gibberish, or too much information to non-tweeting clients and colleagues is now beautifully arranged and shows your tweets to their best advantage.  The easiest way to explain Twylah is to look at an example: http://www.twylah.com/catherinereach .

Additionally, whether your firm is active on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook, it is possible to show the updates to those profiles directly on your website.  Your website may not get updated as often as you would like, so this is a way to add some fresh content and interest PLUS provide your website visitors a glimpse at your social media presence.

A law firm’s website is a vital first impression for potential clients. How well does your website reflect your firm?  Get a Law Firm Website Review from the Chicago Bar Association’s Law Practice Management & Technology Director. This service will not only report on a site’s content and appearance, but also look at management and organizational issues to help the firm keep the site fresh and current.  Take advantage of this objective review for your firm’s website to help provide the best possible reflection of your firm to website visitors.

This article first appeared in CBA Record February/March 2013

Read more: http://www.slaw.ca/2013/04/11/make-mine-to-go/

I thought my first post when I returned from TechShow would be about one of the many wonderful lessons learned.  I was in fact going to post diligently from there.  But the Chicago Hilton has about the worst Wi-Fi access I’ve encountered.  It was tough just getting a cell phone signal.  It was fairly humorous to see so many lawyers with cell phones to their ears and bodies literally plastered to the windows like some sort of human antennae.  At night, when I got back to the room after the myriad of social events, I was just too tired to think, let alone write.

Now that I’m back I’m anxious to share, but an article in the Anderson Elder Law Newsletter entitled “Son Liable for Mom’s $93,000 Nursing Home Bill Under ‘Filial Responsibility’ Law” really caught my attention.  How could that be?  Well, it be!  And I am so shocked by this, I feel compelled to share it right now.  The article explains:

Some 29 states currently have laws making adult children responsible for their parents if their parents can’t afford to take care of themselves. These “filial responsibility” laws have rarely been enforced, but six years ago when federal rules made it more difficult to qualify for Medicaid long-term care coverage, some elder law attorneys predicted that nursing homes would start using the laws as a way to get care paid for.

And it was precisely the application of this law which caused the son to be forced to take financial responsibility.  Unbelievably, the law does not require it to consider other sources of income or to wait until a parent’s Medicaid claim is resolved.  Even more pernicious is that the law permits the nursing home to choose which family members to pursue for the money owed.  In this particular case, they ignored a spouse and other siblings, and went after the apparent ”deep pocket.”

Linda Anderson notes that after Pennsylvania re-enacted its filial support law in the mid-2000s, Williamsport attorney Jeffrey A. Marshall forecast that the new Medicaid law would trigger a wave of lawsuits involving adult children.  Obviously, he was correct, and this is just the beginning of what may become a tidal wave of lawsuits.  In Marshall’s blog post about this court decision he writes:

Children are often surprised to learn that they can be held responsible for their parent’s unpaid medical and care related expenses. It just doesn’t seem fair. But, whether fair or not, the Pittas case shows that the child’s support obligation to the parent is the law in Pennsylvania.  Children: be warned. If your parent needs long term care and may someday be unable to pay for it, you should find out about your potential financial liability and what to do about it.

So what is the son supposed to do, now that he has lost his appeal?  Is he to sue his father and siblings for their “fair share” of the debt?  Declare bankruptcy?  I’m just thinking out loud on this, while I shake my head in disbelief.  Our lives are already so stressful . . . raising children in a two-income household, trying to care for aging parents, trying to save for retirement in an ever-increasing financially hostile future environment, and to have some quality of life and semblance of balance in the current moment.  Is this the straw which breaks the back of American families?

I am so grateful I “strongly encouraged” my mom to purchase optional Long Term Care Insurance through her employer’s Cafeteria Plan some 30 years ago, so that it’s there if she needs it.   We found out from personal experience about 2 years ago how quickly the bills can mount after my mother suffered a fall at home.  The nursing home costs, followed by rehab at home, and then extended personal care until she was recovered enough to be completely on her own again, added up to a huge amount of money which her Medicare and additional excess policy didn’t cover.   They paid plenty, don’t get me wrong.  But there was a lot of uncovered additional expense, especially the personal in-home care, which cost a fortune.  At least the Long Term Care contributed toward some of that once the elimination period was passed.  (Although I admit I had to really duke it out with them to get her benefit paid, despite her making premium payments like clockwork for 30 years.  But hey, don’t even get me started on the topic of insurance companies!    )

If you have living parents, this is not something you can afford to ignore.  Make sure they have adequate insurance coverage, and talk to an Elder Care attorney just to see what risks you face, and how you might avoid them.  The investment to protect yourself now is a pittance compared to the potential exposure later.

The post Children Responsible for Parental Debt appeared first on PA Law Practice Management by Ellen Freedman.

Reid, being a bit of a gadget guy, has a few gift ideas for the tech-oriented lawyer: Apple TV continues to permeate our living rooms. For the lawyer already heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, such as myself, an Apple TV is a great way to rent movies and watch Netflix.

The Leap was entirely new to me – it’s a motion detector you plug into your computer that allows you to use hand and finger movements in place of a mouse. And from the annals of First World Problems, whenever I video conference on Skype I constantly have to untangle my headphones cord before I can take the call. Reid spotted BackBeat Go’s wireless ear buds which may just solve that problem for me this year.

I also have a couple of items I’d add to Reid’s list.

If there is one tech item I’d recommend this year it would be a Sonos music player. I’ve been using Sonos players at home for the past year and it they have been terrific. They sound great and can play the same song throughout the house, play independently or be paired in a very large room to provide sound to please the pickiest audiophile.

In terms of musical content, not only can Sonos stream my iTunes library, it also streams from Amazon’s Cloud Player, Spotify, Pandora and much more. Most of the time I use the built in TuneIn internet radio to stream my new favorite station, 94/7 Portland. I use our Sonos players every day and I love being able to control them from my iPad and iPhone.

Lawyers can’t gift by tech alone, though.

The top of my non-tech list this year is a new briefcase. The one in particular I have my eye on is the Alfred Work Bag from Property Of… Fine Bags & Goods. It’s not cheap at €269.00 but it’s a great looking bag that can go from work to weekend.

If you’ve got a lawyer on your gift list this year, take a look at Reid’s guide and you are sure to find something to please and delight.

One of the common frustrations faced by a lot of lawyers as they embrace practice management software is how to integrate matter-related emails into their digital case files. Email gets trapped within the silo of Gmail, Outlook or some other email program until the lawyer finds a way to bridge between that email program and her practice management software. Let’s call this the “email silo” problem.

This problem has been, in general, handled more easily by local practice management software than it has by their cloud-based brethren. Part of the reason for that is the solution often incorporates an additional software component into the mix – typically a document management software like Worldox. Through the well planned use of practice management, document management and email software – each offering strong interoperability – a lawyer could receive an email in Outlook, save it  and its attachment separately in Worldox and connect those documents to the related matter in, say, Practice Master.

Cloud-based software has generally offered less interoperability than local software. This relative lack of interoperability
is improving rapidly, but still has a way to go. I wrote about this topic in Linking the Clouds for Law Practice Magazine a little time back.

This has made it harder for cloud-based practice management software to solve the email silo problem in the same way.  Different software solutions have made various attempts at solving the problem (with varying amounts of success), but the solution offered recently by Rocket Matter is more tightly integrated – particularly for a firm using Google Apps.

Rather than forwarding or importing emails into the practice management software itself where it will be stored with the rest of the matter database, Rocket Matter introduced a sort of sync feature. Once the sync is set up between the lawyer’s email program and Rocket Matter, emails are viewable in Rocket Matter but actually still live in the email program.

Evan Koblentz, in an article for Law Technology News on the same subject, noted that another cloud-based practice management software, HoudiniESQ, has offered this feature since 2009.

You can view a short video about Rocket Matter’s email integration here.

My favorite features of this approach are first, that there is no forwarding required. Once you sync your email account and associate label/folder names with matters, the emails automatically populate in Rocket Matter. Second, since the emails appear in Rocket Matter via this label/folder association with the given matter, multiple users can associate their individual mail folders with the matter. This way the matter will show related emails from users across the firm.

One possible problem for a lawyer who uses Outlook:  if you eventually want to clean out your closed client matter emails from Outlook, they will also (presumably) be removed from Rocket Matter. The lawyer is left with the same old email silo problem of having to export the emails and store them apart from the rest of the client file.

Where the Rocket Matter approach to email may really shine is for Google Apps users. Google Apps email (and its predecessor Gmail) have from the beginning taken the approach of giving users lots of space and encouraging them to save every email. Since you can easily locate an email via a Google search of your mail archive, it makes a compelling case for never deleting an email again. While gigabytes of old emails might eventually turn your Outlook and Exchange Server into sludge, Google Apps users can save emails forever with no similar degrade in function.

All in all, this is a fresh look at an old problem and Rocket Matter deserves credit for advancing the ball for cloud-based practice management software.

These are all questions that get asked over and over by lawyers. The big question behind all of them is one: where are your go to resources? Today, I’d like to tell you about where you can find a variety of valuable of go to resources.

Ask a Practice Management Advisor
I work for the Oregon State Bar Professional Liability Fund as a practice management advisor. If you are an Oregon lawyer or member of an Oregon lawyer’s firm, then you know the PLF is the mandatory malpractice insurance carrier for the basic coverage required of Oregon lawyers in private practice. If you are not an Oregon attorney, you may have a practice management advisor associated with your state bar association. To see a list of practice management advisors in North American, see here ABA Law Practice Management Section Practice Management Advisors/State & Local Bar Outreach Committee. Call your practice management advisor! We are a resource to getting you the answers to your questions.

Practice Aids & Forms
What you may not realize is that the PLF has a huge variety of free practice aids and forms that can be downloaded from www.osbplf.org. See Loss Prevention on the menu and select the last item, practice aids and forms. Download all of them in Word or WordPerfect and you can customize them. You find a variety of checklists to help you to tackle various substantive practice areas – adoptions to workers’ compensation– plus topics that cut across all practice areas like conflicts of interest, calendaring and docketing, engagement, nonengagement, disengagement, file management, opening your law office, closing your law office, trust accounting, and technology. Lawyers are surprised by the number of practice aids and forms that are available.

Publications
You want to open your own law office? The PLF has free guides which you can download in PDF format from the PLF website, on the menu under Loss Prevention, select Books from the PLF: A Guide to Setting Up & Running Your Law Office, A Guide to Setting Up & Managing Your Lawyer Trust Account, Planning Ahead: A Guide to Protecting Your Clients’ Interests in the Event of Your Disability or Death, and Oregon Statutory Time Limitations Handbook.

Books from the OSB: BarBooks is a resource you simply must take advantage of because you are entitled to free access to excellent books specific to your desired practice area, such as the helpful five volume Advising Oregon Businesses. If you want to look at what publications the OSB offers, see the Legal Publications Catalog. Don’t overlook valuable publications that are associated with CLEs.

CLE Seminars
You want to learn about practicing in different areas?
CLEs from the PLF:You can find CLEs geared to avoiding malpractice traps in family law or how to set up a conflict system or handling your trust account or improving your understanding of financial considerations about managing your law office plus a great variety of other practice management at the PLF. See PLF website then on menu under Loss Prevention select CLE to review on-demand programs, access programs available on DVD of a CLE you might have missed and download the CLE’s handouts, or learn about an upcoming in-person CLE.

CLEs from the OSB:You can find CLEs specific to your desired practice area plus other CLEs – find out what CLEs are available in a variety of formats, QuickCalls, CLE On Demand learn about upcoming live seminars you can attend in person or by webinar by accessing the OSB CLE and Seminars catalog at OSBCLE.org.

CLEs from the Oregon Law Institute (OLI):You can find CLE offerings that fit your needs at OLI. Don’t overlook the OLI resources, whether in person seminars, webinars, MP3 courses, or review their product catalog.

American Bar Law Practice Management Section CLEs: The LPM Section offers CLEs produced by the American Law Institute (ALI). You do not have to be a member of the ABA LPM Section, though you may want to join. See information about the LPM CLEs here.

You can pry it from my cold dead hands, to paraphrase Moses Charlton Heston.

Apple has announced a special event for September 12, 2012, widely believed to be an announcement of the new iPhone 5 (or just plain new iPhone, as they seem more likely to call it). Most Apple events result in a flurry excitement from Mac geeks like myself, but this one has particular oomph because the new iPhone is rumored to be the last product that Moses Steve Jobs personally worked on.

So, why does all this hoopla mean it you should sell your iPhone?

It turns out that iPhones, due to some vagary of market economics, and in stark contrast to most electronic gadgets, hold their value over time astoundingly well. That value peaks right before a new version is introduced, particularly a new version that changes the physical hardware, as the new iPhone is rumored to do.

A well-timed sale can put some cash in your pocket to defray the up front costs of the new phone. I just sold mine on Craigslist. I posted the ad at 9pm on Monday night and handed over the phone to the buyer at 10am the following morning. I got $280 back on a phone I used for two years and that cost me $399 in hardware up front. I’m sure I could have sold it for more if I was not impatient in dealing with spammers and pinheads.

If selling on Craigslist is not your thing, there are other ways to easily sell your old iPhone as well:

Amazon Electronics Trade In will allow you to sell your iPhone to Amazon, which will then turn around and sell it to a third party. It’s easy and the trade in allotment offered are generous. The only hitch is you will be paid in an Amazon gift card instead of cold, hard duckets.

Gazelle offers another easy avenue to sell your old hardware. The trade in allotment is a lot less generous than Amazon, though, it is in cash. For point of comparison, for a phone like mine in “flawless” condition, Amazon offered $310 and Gazelle offered $167. It’s cash instead of a gift card, but I would still have taken the Amazon deal instead.

Your wireless provider may also be interested in purchasing your hardware. Verizon offered me $165 for my old iPhone.

Going with one of these friction-free routes will net you less dough, but will spare you some hassle.

A few tips if you do decide to sell this iPhone or the next:

1. The physical and working condition of the phone is paramount. Keep your hardware shiny and scratch-free and it will be worth more when you get rid of it.
2. Keep the box. Used phones, like the children’s toys collected by the 40 Year Old Virgin, are worth more when you have the original packaging in good order.
3. Wipe your data off your phone and reset all the factory settings before you sell it.
4. Buy yourself a cheap phone to use in the interim while you are between iPhones. I’m presently rocking one of these sweet flip phones, while I wait for the new iPhones to come in. I bought it on Amazon for about $45, so factor that cost into your plan. Also factor in that toting one of these things around in 2012 will make you an object of mockery and feels depressingly like carrying a Jitterbug.

Happy sales.

In this post, I’d like to share some of the good examples of one page business plans from around the web and discuss how they might work for lawyers starting law firms.

It’s probably evident that in using a one page business plan, editing is king. That is to say, what you decide to leave out is as important as what the plan authors have included. As a result, there are a quite few one page plans out there and each takes a different approach.

Here are my three favorites for lawyers.

MyShingle Back of the Napkin Law Firm Plan – Start Here

This plan from Carolyn Elefant is a nice, graphical approach tailored to lawyers and focusing on mission, passion, practice area segmentation, targeted marketing and goals. It features a blend of big picture topics and down to earth business exigencies to capture excitement but move the planning process forward.

This plan makes a great first step early in your planning process.

The $100 Startup One Page Business Plan – Your Next Step

Chris Guillebeau’s excellent book on starting a micro-business has a lot of potential wisdom for the lawyer starting a practice and his one page plan is also terrific. It focuses mainly on marketing and sales, including: price setting, generating referrals, targeting ideal clients, income projections and potential obstacles to success.

Once you have committed to starting a firm and know you practice area and firm mission, this plan will help you walk through the marketing issues in a bit more depth.

Gazelles One Page Strategic Plan – 1 Year In

Gazelles is a training and coaching company and they offer a free one page strategic plan. It is two-sided and probably would be printed on 11×17 paper, so it kind of stretches the definition of one page. It is, however, comprehensive and draws heavily on information from Verne Harnish’s worthwhile, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, as well as the ideas of management uber-guru, Jim Collins.

You could think of this as more of 201 level class in business plans, as compared to the other examples. I recommend this in my work occasionally to folks who are starting up firms and already have well-formed ideas about the nuts and bolts.

Otherwise, this is a great plan for getting you refocused after you have your first year of practice under your belt.

Using the Plans for a Law Firm

In law practice management circles, we tend to spend a lot of time focusing on what makes law firms different from other businesses – we have different ethical, regulatory and market challenges from Joe’s Copy Shop and Tire Rotation, to be sure. At root level though, the private practice of law involves selling a service to a willing customer (hopefully) for a profit. In other words, the DNA of a law firm is not terribly dissimilar to any other service business. Don’t let the non-legal verbiage distract you from the underlying ideas.

These plans are designed to minimize the resistance a lot of lawyers feel to creating business plans. They are short, concise and will get you focused on the big picture.

Whether you are contemplating starting your firm or are a bunch of years into practice and feeling stuck in a rut, give these great plans (and the associated books) a look and see if you they help you chart your course.

When we talk about what the new firm will do, what market it will serve, how it will differ from the prior firm, our conversation often steers to business plans. I ascribe to the notion that the chief benefit of business plan (especially for a business as strategically straightforward as a small law firm) is in the thinking and articulating the answers to the questions most commonly included in business plans.

As a predictor of the challenges and successes a new firm is likely to actually encounter, most business plans probably fall a bit short of the mark. But in forcing the attorney to consider challenges, opportunities, defining market segments, etc, they still are a valuable tool.

How Long?

When I encounter lawyers who have business plans ready by the time we meet, they (the plans, not the lawyers) tend to be very detailed. These lawyers often have a background in business, maybe an MBA, and this isn’t their first business plan rodeo.

These detailed plans can be great. But they can also be totally overwhelming to a lot of lawyers starting law practices and lugging to do lists that cover page after page of yellow legal pads. When rent is due and you need malpractice insurance and you have to file with the Secretary of State and 25 of your clients want to follow you to the new firm, a business plan sometimes seems like a time-consuming luxury that a start up law firm can’t afford.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

Skipping a business plan altogether is a missed opportunity for the start up law practice. Once things get really rolling, the opportunities to look at the big picture of your law firm and its place in the market will come around less and less frequently.

Lawyers starting new law firms can get most of the value of doing a long, exhaustive MBA-approved business plan from spending an hour or two on a short form, bare bones business plan. These plans – and one page business plans are readily available all over the web – cause the start up lawyer to run through the most critical big picture questions without getting bogged down in details that are not mission critical on day 1.

In the next post, I’ll gather some links to one page business plans from around the web that may serve as useful jumping off points and talk about applying these forms specifically to starting a law firm.

Touchfire Keyboard for iPads

This super thin overlay keyboard is an amazing advance, bringing true touch typing to the iPad while adding almost nothing to its profile or weight. The transparent keyboard attaches magnetically to the bottom half of the iPad in a profile so thin you can “swipe” right through it to see the keys underneath, and so flexible it can be folded out of the way. Some early reviews of the Touchfire include:

New York Times – “The keyboard is incredibly simple to use. Typing on it is like typing on a physical keyboard”

Wired - “Two Seattle-based inventors have come up with an iPad keyboard that could dramatically alter the tablet keyboard landscape”

FastCompany – “Turns the iPad into a true laptop killer”

CNET – “The super-thin-and-lightweight TouchFire adds virtually no physical bulk”

Technolawyer’s review of the Touchfire is titled “This Accessory Is The Best Thing To Ever Happen To Your iPad’s Keyboard”. Read the review or go right to the Touchfire website and watch the video. Either way, if you own an iPad, are thinking about buying one, or simply like technology, check out the new Touchfire keyboard.

Legal Talk Network’s “The Un-Billable Hour” host Rodney Dowell and State Bar of Michigan Practice Management Advisor Diane Ebersole explain how document assembly applications have advanced in the last few years and how these applications can increase the bottom line for your law firm. Listen to the free podcast (34 min) and download the accompanying list of resources to explore the many ways a lawyer can increase productivity, particularly for document intensive practices.

If you need to send large files and have struggled with different solutions, spend a few minutes exploring Adobe® SENDNOW. This service provides a way to send large files, convert the files to PDF prior to sending, limit the amount of time the recipient has to retrieve the file, provide an email receipt when the file has been retrieved, attach personal branding items, and supply detailed tracking. Functionality options vary according to pricing plan. Plan versions ranges are Free, Basic Plan @ $9.99/month and the Plus Plan @ $15.83 month.

Several web conferencing service providers have customized their applications and services to work on smart phones. You no longer have to be locked in to a land line to host or join a web conference. Check out the following applications to learn about time-saving options that would be an asset for your firm.

I was joking with my husband about running out of time to get something done before it was too late: “I hate when it’s too late too soon!”  Maybe I’m on to something here.  Running out of time may have been part of 2011. Maybe it has even crept into 2012. Well, luckily, goals are something we set for ourselves and often achieve with great enthusiasm. Other goals we hit a couple of times and then miss a couple of times and give up, discouraged. You may be confusing goals with resolutions because ’tis the season to be confused about setting goals in the new year when we likely are expressing our resolutions. Goals are measurable – “My goal is to lose ten pounds.” Resolutions are for our continuous effort, “My resolution is to eat healthier. “  For more on Resolutions, see Rod Ibrahimi’s January 2, 2012 post on Lifehacker, “The Science Behind New Year’s Resolutions (And How to Use it to Achieve Yours!)” and to get more clarity around the difference between goals and resolutions, I like David Galloway’s December 31, 2011 post on Lifehacker, “Differentiate Between Goals and Resolutions to Aid in Personal Achievement.”

Now, has it become “too late too soon?” It is the start of a new year. Make it your resolution to learn better strategies for managing your time.

Here are some of my favorites.

1. MindTools. You can do some serious self-improvement on this website! Here is the link to their excellent Time Management Toolkit. I recommend you take the Time Management Quiz to understand what can best help you. Time to get honest.

2. Pomodoro Technique. If you struggle somedays with wasting more time avoiding doing something than the something would take, you may be having some anxiety about getting it done. You think?! Time management gurus advise breaking tasks down into smaller chunks. Very helpful. What the Pomodoro Technique can do is take it one step further, a timer that ‘tells’ you it is time to work in a sustained fashion for just 25 minutes. You are ‘supposed’ to put a checkmark on a piece of paper. I have an iPhone App that tracks my completed pomodoros. Forget the paper – just more clutter on my desk! Then ‘tells’ you it is time to take a break for 5 minutes. After a set of four pomodoros, you take a longer break. Simple. Now try to stick with it. It certainly is a tool for tackling that tough one that you shuffle off to the side of your desk. Try it. It may work. Carol Wilson was Oregon’s first Practice Management Advisor. She used to kindly advise breaking down tasks into small increments. I don’t know if she was a fan of the Pomodoro Technique. But the principle is the same: break it into doable portions. Eat the elephant one bite at a time.

3. Getting Things Done! David Allen.  He has quite a following. A favorite place to begin with the idea is to take the Getting Things Done Quiz which is called,  GTD>Q  and available free. More good assessment. There is a  G T D® Starter Kit that may interest you if you want to leap into the program with both feet, complete with CDs and exercises and other content for $79.98. But I would cautions some of you to be careful to not avoid tackling something that needs tackling by getting focused on doing the G T D® Starter Kit instead of just working on one piece of what needs to be done. You know who you are!

4. Get some personal one-on-one or group coaching. Those of you reading this in Oregon can contact the Oregon Attorney Assistance Office and ask Meloney Crawford to include you in her, Getting It Done 2012 program.  Don’t procrastinate now, as it starts the second week of January. And you can even attend by online method. What I really appreciate about Meloney is that she doesn’t believe in one-size-fits-all. She will share a number of tools to help you dig in or dig out!

Well, these are my four. What are yours?

Happy resolutions to you!

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My advice to these new lawyers  is to get more mentors to work with. There is no “One-Size-Fits-All” mentor. But there are talented lawyers who are experts at closing statements, drafting clear contracts and compelling motions. Others have mastered the fine art of working the room at a networking event or meeting with a prospective client. Still others are excellent at numbers and managing law firm financials so that clients are served at the most reasonable rate at a reasonable profit to the firm.

Where to find these potential mentors? Begin asking other lawyers and judges and judicial clerks to name the five best family law attorneys or civil litigators or criminal defense lawyers or estate planning attorneys. Watch these recommended lawyers in court. Then begin deciding who you think you’d like to learn from. You will be surprised how often these lawyers will be willing to give you tips. I haven’t heard of any of them turn down meeting with a new lawyer. Part of being good at your game is being dedicated to the profession. Realizing that, it is easy to see that you are just as important to these lawyers as they are to you.  Consider them your team of mentors and begin getting gifts aplenty.

Here is an important checklist you may not have written down.
1. Check that your cell phone – especially Smart Phone– has a password to access it and use it.

2. Check that you have a remote device tracking and data-wipe application installed for your phone and your laptop.

3. Check that your laptop has a secure WiFi if using public WiFi spots.

4. Check that your password is a “strong” password and change it often and different variations for different locations.

5. Check that your cell phone is still on your hip, that your laptop is safely in its bag in your immediate control, and that all those gizmo and gadgets are all tucked away safely where you want them to be.”

Client confidentiality is helped with a checklist for the security of your electronic gizmos and gadgets.

Here are some signs of impairment that can help alert you that someone you know may be at risk.

• Not returning phone calls to clients and opposing counsel.
• Not available when clients or opposing counsel attempt to reach lawyer at the office.
• The voicemail has a message that says it is full.
• The lawyer doesn’t follow through in delivering work product, answers, or return calls as promised.
• Contact with the lawyer leaves impression of distractibility, difficulty tracking conversation, or other indications of cognitive difficulty such as slurred or halting speech.
• Lawyer may be abusing alcohol or drugs and now exhibits disheveled appearance or poor personal hygiene, alcohol on breath or exuded from pores.
• Lawyer’s behavior has changed dramatically. Edginess, agitation, hair-trigger angry outbursts are often dismissed as “just having a bad time lately.”
• The lawyer seems to disappear for periods of time that is unexplained.
• The lawyer has missed deadlines and court appearances.
• The lawyer’s personal finances are in bad shape: loans and credit cards and other accounts in collections and is dodging evictions.
• The lawyer, if working for a firm, is in trouble for chronic absenteeism or “flakiness” or has recently been fired or subject to an abrupt “mutual parting of the ways.”
• The lawyer has recently moved to an executive office suite or virtual office but is never there when you check with the receptionist.
• There may be multiple “attempted delivery” tags taped to the door or a pile of mail can be seen through the mail slot in the door.
• The lawyer doesn’t come to the door though you can hear sounds of someone in the office.
• The lawyer begins to vanish or self isolate a few months before he or she finally commits suicide.
Resources:
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
ABA Commission of Lawyers Assistance Programs (CoLAP)
Directory of State Lawyer Assistance Programs
For further information, I highly recommend you download and listen to the following provided as a free service to ABA members. What Lawyers Need to Know About Suicide During a Recession: Prevention, Identity and Law Firm Responsibility (Free MP3 Audio Download)Co-sponsored by the ABA Commission of Lawyer Assistance Programs.