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Check out Niki’s Cloud Computing for Lawyers and Gyi’s Legal Marketing, too.
Also, please welcome Megan Zavieh to Lawyerist. She’s already written a few posts as a guest. They were pretty darn good, so we invited her to keep on writing. Megan handles ethics complaints for lawyers, and you’d probably call her practice a virtual one. So she’s got some interesting things to write about.
Megan’s posts will go up Wednesdays around 11, starting this week.
Having trouble organizing notes and to-do lists in a way that helps you complete tasks? Before you get another freaky tattoo, check out Workflowy.
It just may be the world’s best tool for taking notes and making lists.
Here’s why I believe WorkFlowy will soon be one of your favorite productivity tools too.
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I’m posting this on a Saturday, and if you’re working today, especially in a cubicle, this post is dedicated to you.
I work for a big bank and I am a lawyer. And I work in a cubicle. My boss manages 5 lawyers, and he works in a cubicle. That’s just how it is. There are, I believe, quite a few people at the bank who earn double what I earn that work in cubicles too. So I’m not saying I’m being singled out.
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Yesterday, I sat in on the ABA Young Lawyers Division council meeting in Minneapolis. The council was considering a resolution to recommend to the ABA House of Delegates that would require law schools to teach business skills to law students.
Better-equipping law students to practice law ought to be the job of law schools, after all. But, I can’t help thinking, what makes anyone think law schools would be any good at teaching business skills?
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Billable hours have been back in the news over the past month thanks to a dispute between DLA Piper and one of their clients over legal bills. The client refused to pay the bill, claiming DLA Piper overstaffed its files and performed unnecessary work. Emails from former DLA Piper attorneys (“Churn that bill, baby!”) surfaced during discovery, underscoring the problem. DLA Piper called the emails “unprofessional” and “an offensive and inexcusable attempt at humor,” but said that the billing was appropriate for the work performed.
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You need to make yourself indispensable at your job.
In case you hadn’t heard, the legal job market’s still hurting. Barely half of all 2012 grads have long-term, full-time legal jobs. Yikes. You mean you didn’t go to law school so you could ask someone if they wanted whipped cream on that Frappuccino?
But no matter the cause to the glut of legal grads these days (which has been the subject of many other articles), if you’re already out there with a JD Sheepskin and one of the coveted law jobs, you’re probably past the point of caring why it’s happening. Instead, you’re probably wanting to make sure you keep that job — or if you’re a solo make sure you keep the lights on.
In order to keep your job, you need to make sure your firm has clients. Take an active role and start building your own book of business. I want to share some things that have worked for my neighborhood practice.
And I promise at the end, I’ll tell you what the picture at the top of this post is about. Keep Reading ⇒
In a paperless practice, screen size is critical. Don’t skimp on the screen real estate. You have two choices: jumbo monitors or multi-monitor setups. I’ve opted for the jumbo monitor. Here’s why:
Multi-monitors are great for segregating programs to different screens. They look very cool. But if you are reading this, you are an attorney, not a day-trader. You will spend the majority of your time at your computer doing two things: reading and writing. Most of what you do falls in one of those two categories. And for those purposes, jumbo monitors excel. Keep Reading ⇒
A: A central point of contention between people who think online marketing (read: social media) is worthwhile for lawyers who want to get clients and those who think it is a waste of time is this question: Is there a critical mass of good-quality clients online, and are they ready and willing to hire you if you market yourself online?
In other words, if you go all-in with online marketing, could you get the kind of business you hope for in your wildest dreams?
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See our Law Technology Buyer's Guide for our top technology recommendations.
After I got bored playing Angry Birds on my Christmas-gift-to-myself Android tablet, I had to get down to business. After all, I didn’t drop over $400 to play games. I bought it so I could extract some productivity from my daily bus commute and my lunch hour.
The biggest productivity challenge was getting my Microsoft Outlook data synchronized. I needed away-from-Office access to my to-do list, contacts, and calendar. I’d had previous experience with PDA-to-PC sync, so I knew how dreadful such apps can be. The few good ones were usually pricey.
The good news is, I found something that (mostly) fits the bill. The bad news is that this is no $2.99 app. But, really, should it be?
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Earlier this year, Lawyerist.com published a review of how Ifbyphone’s call tracking technology helps lawyers improve their marketing by using unique phone numbers to track calls from ads. It generated a lot of buzz and a lot of calls to Ifbyphone from law practices interested in learning new ways to use the phone to generate business.
So without further ado, here are 3 ways our legal customers use technology with their phones to generate more business for their firms. Each tip also includes a link to a white paper with more information.
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