Five Tips on Hiring an SEO Firm for Your Law Practice
While there are infinite ways to spend money marketing your law firm, only some will deliver the right return on investment. In my experience, especially in today’s digital marketing environment,...
View ArticleFollow These Three Service Tenets for Satisfied Clients
Unhappy clients often choose to file ethics complaints against their poor-performing lawyers. What leads to their unhappiness? It may come as a surprise, but most ethics complaints are not about...
View ArticleChaos Is King, Until It’s Not: A Solo’s Guide to Order
Chaos sounds the death knell for any solo attorney’s practice. It breeds confusion, distraction, and disorder. Unfortunately, for most solos, chaos is the natural state of affairs. The reason is...
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Nimble Legal Tech Companies on How They’re Here to Help
During the ABA TECHSHOW 2017 program “The Startups Are Coming,” Andrew Arruda suggested we reframe the sentiment to: “The nimble companies are here to help you.” Not as sexy but a lot more accurate...
View ArticleYour Bio Is Schizo
Regarding your self-promotion, I have good news and I have bad news. Good news: There are more opportunities to promote yourself than ever before. Bad news: The sprawl of marketing opportunities is so...
View ArticleFive Hot Content Marketing Tips for Lawyers from LMA 2017
The Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference is where lawyers and legal marketers go to get up to date on the latest techniques, trends and tools. Here are content-related takeaways from last...
View ArticleCreative Goal Setting for Improving Your Solo Practice
It seems that every solo lawyer I meet has a list of things they would like to be doing better in their practice. Sometimes the motivating factor is business growth, sometimes it’s efficiency. At the...
View ArticleOnce More Unto the Breach: Taking a Second Bar Exam
Last month I signed up to take the California bar exam in July. (I am fully aware that I might be insane.) I have had to decline too many opportunities to help potential clients in California, and...
View ArticleYou Can’t Practice Law Without Math
One of my mediations included negotiation of a medical provider’s lien. The lien was $10,000; the offer to settle it was $3,700. I gently pointed out that the offer was less than half the amount billed...
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CRM of the Crop: Lexicata Represents a Step Forward in Client Intake
Legal technology has advanced light years over the span of the last decade-plus. And, as the originally successful innovators have had large corporations grow up around them, new innovators have...
View ArticleA Solo’s Tips on Balancing Client Calls and Personal Time
If you’re a solo practitioner or in a small law firm, you are likely a slave to your smartphone, making sure clients can always reach you. As managing partner at a small firm, I found it increasingly...
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16 Good Things to Do with a Business Card (Yours and Theirs)
I take a perverse sort of pleasure in asking lawyers for their business card. It reveals a lot about a person. How deeply must they dig to find one? If it takes more than one pocket, it’s a safe bet he...
View ArticleLeaving Your Law Firm: Who Can You Tell, and When?
So, you’ve decided to leave your firm. One of the first questions that likely comes to mind is whether — and when — you can tell clients, your firm, colleagues and staff. As it turns out, there are...
View ArticleStone Soup: A Client Development Metaphor
There is an old folk story that makes a fine metaphor for client development. In the tale, hungry strangers (read: the law firm client team) facilitate the people of a town (the team’s clients) giving...
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10 Minutes with Legal Tech Entrepreneur Alma Asay
If not now … The impulse to rethink her career hit sixth-year litigator Alma Asay just as she was about to embark on the Biglaw partnership track. Looking around, she realized she wanted to fix an...
View ArticleFive Ways to Spring Clean Your Personal and Professional Life
It’s spring! Finally, the sun is shining, the world is budding, the birds are chirping, and spring cleaning can begin. We usually think of spring cleaning our house, but here are five ways to spring...
View ArticleAre You Acting in the Courtroom?
A law student is working on a direct examination during a trial skills program. She is practicing her presentation — how she stands, gestures and speaks. Each time through the examination, she asks...
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How to Respond to Negative Online Attorney Reviews
In this new feature, the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism will be answering questions about ethical quandaries and issues in the business of practicing law. QUESTION: “I had a...
View ArticleHow Smart Lawyers Solve Problems
Attendees at CodeX FutureLaw 2017 were reminded of some obvious but often forgotten lessons of being a lawyer. One is that clients do not understand the law. This seems obvious, right? Well, not...
View ArticleWriting Your Way to New Business
The other day, I was talking with a coaching client (let’s call him Lawyer A) about some new business he had just received. A lawyer at another firm (Lawyer B) called Lawyer A after reading an article...
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