Posted by Anthony Cerminaro: “Want to start a business or make some other personal change? Something holding you back?
Perhaps you will recognize yourself in this list from How to Save the World. It is a top ten list of obstacles to making changes and ideas for how to overcome them:
"1. Procrastination…
"2. Well-meaning naysayers and apologists…
"3. Fear of failure (defeatism)…
"4. Giving up too soon (impatience)…
"5. Waiting for the whole plan to be in place. Just start.
"6. Lack of self-confidence or cultural intimidation…
"7. Inflexibility or lack of adaptability…
"8. Trying to do it all yourself…
"9. Lack of forethought or concentration...
"10. Lack of necessary skills or talents…
The full text of this post is available at the source site listed below.
Source: BizzBangBuzz, 27 April 2008
From the blog: “I’m not a big fan of voicemail. I don’t mind leaving voicemail messages; I just hate having to listen to them. For some strange reason when people know their voice is being recorded, their brain short circuits. What normally would take 30 seconds to say, now takes 2 minutes.
I don’t mind it so much for people I know. I have to deal with them on a daily basis, so I can’t hold voicemail grudges against them. However, if someone cold calls me or it’s just an acquaintance that calls, a crappy voicemail annoys me and leaves a bad impression.
I know. It’s superficial, but I’m human. But a prospective employer or client is also human, so there’s a good chance that crappy, unclear, and long voicemails annoy them too. So, for your consideration, here are 10 tips to help you leave the perfect voicemail and, consequently, a good impression.
* Think through what you are going to say before you place the call…
* State your name first…
* State your number right after your name…
* Repeat your phone number twice…
* State the purpose of your call…
* Find some common ground…
* Be brief…
* Leave a specific request…
* Consider leaving your e-mail in addition to your phone number…
* Be Brief. Did I mention be brief? Yeah? Make sure to do it.
The full text and the active link are available at the source site listed below
Source: The Art of Manliness, 22 April 2008
Thanks to Dennis Kennedy’s Links of the Week
From the e-newsletter: “Lawyers who are or aspire to be leaders must learn to self-manage. Especially when stressed or under pressure (and who isn’t, at least part of the time?) it’s easy to let self-management slide in the face of provocation. Some attorneys I know offer a blanket apology to staff and colleagues—something like, "I’m feeling stressed, so please excuse me if I blow up or yell at you or throw things, ok?" I don’t recommend that approach; it’s better than nothing, I suppose, but it’s actually announcing that bad behavior is coming, apparently largely unchecked.
Let’s be real: attorneys are often faced with statements, actions, arguments, behavior, etc. that is galling in the extreme. It’s a common practice in litigation among some to make an effort to find their opponents’ hot buttons; push the button and out pops an ugly, crazy person—not someone a jury would respect or believe. (Same goes for witnesses, too.) So how can you handle it when faced with provocation that would make the Buddha quiver with rage?
1. Keep your attention on the motivation behind the provocation. Is the person who’s enraging you doing it intentionally, or is it a by-product of words or behavior that he likely thinks perfectly appropriate? If it’s the former, don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he succeeded. If it’s the latter, consider whether displaying annoyance would stop the behavior or simply let your opponent know that he’s found a soft spot.
2. Breathe. This is great advice for just about any situation, but it’s especially good for dealing with anger. You can react, which implies knee-jerk emotional feedback made without any reflection, or you can respond, which implies feedback that follows a pause and analysis/reflection to determine the best way to address the provocation. It’s far better to respond than to react. There’s no reason why you can’t fall silent for a few seconds (which may feel interminable to you and your opponent) while you work through your options.
3. Speak softly. Most of us tend to raise our voices when we speak in anger. Therefore, it’s disarming to do the opposite and to speak more quietly. The effect is to appear reasonable and controlled (especially helpful if your opponent is ranting and raving and appearing to be out of control) and to force your opponent to listen carefully to hear what you have to say. I am informed that in Japanese culture, when two parties are arguing, the one who raises her voice first loses. It’s a difficult tactic for many of us to master, but if you can speak softly in the face of provocation, you will stand a much better chance of controlling your anger.
4. Vent. Express your anger in some forum that poses no risk of exposing it. Writing can be helpful, but especially if you write an angry response to an email, be sure that you don’t accidentally send it!
5. Exercise. That’s physical venting. When feasible, it’s a great idea to get up and take a walk instead of marinating in a situation that makes you angry.
6. Selective release of anger. Sometimes, it’s absolutely appropriate to express your anger at the person whose behavior has caused it. But consider the consequences of such an expression. Will you disrupt a relationship? Do you stand to lose ground? Will your expressed anger cause the person to react in a way that will cause you even more trouble? And when you do choose to display anger, consider doing so through your words only but continuing to speak in a low, even tone of voice. That will reinforce the gravity of your words.
And, despite our best efforts at these tactics, all of us lose our tempers sometimes. Especially in time of frustration and stress, it’s easy to let it slip, despite best efforts. When that happens, don’t be afraid to apologize and admit to being human.
Julie Fleming Brown, J.D., A.C.C. provides attorney development coaching and consulting to law firm associates and partners, focusing on topics such as leadership, client, and professional development; career strategy; and work/life integration. A certified leadership coach (Georgetown University), Julie publishes the weekly email newsletter Leadership Matters for Lawyers and posts often on the Life at the Bar Blog. Learn more at www.LifeAtTheBar.com or by contacting Julie by telephone at 800.758.6214 or by email to jfb@lifeatthebar.com."
Source: Solomon, Mark and Lisa. “The Timesheet.” The Billable Hour. April 2008. Subscribe http://www.thebillablehour.com/timesheet.php
Posted by Nerino Petro: “Ed Poll has written a number of books on law practice management including his book Collecting Your Fee: Getting Paid from Intake to Invoice which should be on every lawyers reading list in my opinion. Ed shared some of his advice from that book in Is the Check REALLY in the Mail? Only If You Bill the Right Way! article in the ABA’s Law Practice TODAY electronic newsletter.
Ed believes that there are five specific reasons clients don’t pay their bills…
While it is hard to condense all of the things you should do, Ed provides some useful suggestions for dealing with clients who are avoiding paying your bill under one of his 5 scenarios. One of his suggestions that I really appreciate is:
Sending out invoices on or about the 25th of the month is a good example. It shortens the receivables stream because clients receive statements on or before the first day of the following month. Since most people pay their bills on or about the first of the month, a bill that comes after that is frequently kept for payment until the following month. Another idea is to bill one-fourth of the alphabet each week. That way the firm receives money from one-fourth of all clients weekly, which evens out cash flow over the month, rather than once per month.
… While many malpractice carriers and State Bar’s recommend that you never sue a client over fees, I believe that this only encourages folks who know this and seek to use this fact to their benefit. If you have properly documented the file, performed the agreed upon legal services and your fees are reasonable for the type of case in your community, then you need to stand firm. It has been my experience that if you have a reputation of being prepared to take all steps necessary to collect a fee that has been properly earned, you are less likely to attract these types of clients or to have them try this ploy with you.”
Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Nerino Petro’s Compujurist.com, 28 April 2008
Posted by Doug Cornelius: “With the summer associates coming soon, The Firm has been wondering what to do with Facebook. Last summer, the summer associates created their own Facebook group. The Firm's recruiting department was wondering whether to create the Facebook Group for the 2008 group ahead of time.
Of course, I was a big advocate of setting up the Facebook group. That way the summer associates could start connecting with each other before they arrived at The Firm. Also, it would send them the message, that their online personas and activities need to get cleaned-up (if necessary).
They also spent some time researching Facebook to see what other large law firm groups are in Facebook. Here are the results. It starts with the firm name, then lists the groups found with the firm name. Under each group is the target audience of the group, whether it is opened or closed and who created the group….
The full text of this post is available at the source site listed below
Source: KM Space, 24 April 2008 Thanks to Dennis Kennedy’s Links of the Week
Posted by Matt Steinke: “A written summary of Justice Scalia's 60 Minutes interview is available here.”
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Moritz Legal Information Blog, 29 April 2008
In the news: “So your company loans an employee a laptop. The employee resigns, but he doesn't return the laptop. The company can certainly deduct the cost of the laptop from the employee's final paycheck, right? Wrong. While in many cases deductions like this one might appear reasonable, says attorney Jennifer Blum Feldman, the law in this area is anything but. In fact, determining whether a deduction is legally permissible requires some careful analysis under both state and federal law.”
Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 30 April 2008. Copyright 2008. ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.
Posted by Genie Tyburski: “The letter below is in response to Convert HTML to PDF with an Easy Tool.
Phillip Fries: For desktop users, it is much easier to install the open source virtual printer driver PDFCreator. Then you can "print" to a pdf file on your hard drive from any Windows application, including Web browsers. Being open source, there is no license fee for this program.
There is also Zamzar, an online document convertor that handles multiple file types. It may be a little rough on conversion yet, but it's better than most I've seen. The service is free for files up to 100MB in size.”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: TVC Alert Research News, 29 April 2008, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/transfer.asp?xmlFile=apr08/29apr08.xml
Posted by Robert Ambrogi: “Aric Press, editor-in-chief of The American Lawyer, presents a free webinar today in which he previews the results of this year's Am Law 100. The 15-minute program begins at 3 p.m. Eastern time. Register for it at this page.”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Robert Ambrogi’s LawSites, 29 April 2008
In the news: “A disaster recovery site is a necessity to keep going in worst-case scenarios, but its cost makes law firms wary to implement it. A critical step in the initial disaster planning process is to educate management on multipurpose, co-location sites and get true buy-in for your proposals.”
Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 29 April 2008. Copyright 2008. ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.
Written by Ron Paquette: “Most law firms want to evaluate client and matter profitability. When deploying profitability models, one of the most common questions Redwood receives has to do with determining the cost of partner time on billable work. Since most matters in the legal industry today are billed on an hourly rate, the most effective means of allocating costs is on an hourly cost basis. There are two components to costs, direct and indirect (overhead) – the focus of this discussion is on the direct component, e.g. partner compensation. And since most firms set billable hours expectations for their partners, the question becomes: How much of a partner’s compensation should the firm consider when calculating this “hourly cost rate” allocated to each billable hour he/she works?
Partners are compensated for a number of contributions to their firm. Some include:
Billable hours;
Originations;
Matter & client management;
Attorney management & development; and
Their status as a co-owner of the firm.
Since no firm (that we have encountered) determines a partner’s compensation by measuring each contribution and summing them, our goal with every firm is to come up with a proxy that is reasonable and creates a means of evaluating client/matter profitability that is truly usable…
[Read how to do this and view their chart at the source site listed below]
We’ve discussed the concept of the cost of partner time with many leaders of law firms over the years. What we know for sure is that there is not a one size fits all solution. What has become clearer, however, is that there are key criteria that every solution should strive to meet. Over the course of a series of entries, we’ll be exploring the pros and cons of various options. We welcome your feedback and reactions.
Related posts
The Science Behind Pricing
Return on Partner Effort
Client Attrition Risk Scorecard for Law Firms
Whatever Happen to the Paperless Law Office?
What Does a Paperclip Have to Do With Law Firm Management?”
Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: More Partner Income, 29 April 2008
Posted by Tom Mighell; ‘Today's blog is brought to you by Gail Wurtzler, who practices with David Graham & Stubbs in Denver, Colorado. Her Environmental Toxic Torts Blog is a supplement to her practice in defending property damage toxic tort cases, among other things. She's discussing legal developments and defense strategy in the area of environmental toxic torts, including such topics as medical monitoring, response costs, and insurance.”
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Inter Alia, 29 April 2008
From the site: “Knowledge is definitely power and the financial services industry needs to better educate consumers on the benefits and attributes of structured settlement products. Ringler Radio host, Larry Cohen, welcomes special guest, Bobby Steele, President of AIG American General Structured Settlements, as they look at the results of a new consumer survey of more than 1,000 Americans conducted by Esearch.com and sponsored by AIG American General Structured Settlements, focused on structured settlements vs. lump sum settlements. Larry and Bobby discuss the results of the survey, the Grillo v. Pettiete case and the need to better educate Americans on structured settlements.
Right Click and Download
Play Windows Media”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Legal Talk Network, 28 April 2008
From the blog: "I don't care to listen to you today..."
Join Victor Medina, Grant Griffiths, Finis Price and Ben Stevens in a roundtable discussion about using Macs in the law office.
Comments? Send them to milochat@macsinthelawoffice.com
Subscribe to this podcast using iTunes!
Embedded player here: [Go to the source site ao access this link]
Download the podcast directly by clicking (or right-clicking) here [Go to the source site ao access this link]
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Small Business and Solo Law Practice Blog, 16 April 2008
Posted by Ernest Svenson: “Quick PDF ideas
• Acrobat: Create Custom Security Envelopes
Security Envelopes can be customized to include your company logo and branding. Essentially, this Acrobat feature is the digital equivalent of pre-printed envelopes.
• Famundo - Scan docs to the web, and store online
Haven't tried this but it looks like something worth investigating.
• Fujitsu's Smallest Color ADF Scanner
$300, 8 ppm, does color and can be powered of the USB port of computer
• How to create a Transparent Signature Stamp in Acrobat
This same method can be used to create the signature that gets inserted into a Word or WordPerfect document.
• PDF Stamp software - stamp image,text,graphics on the pdf file with pdf stamp software
Dates, times, page numbers, file names are just a few of the variables you can stamp. One at a time, or in batch.
• ScanTango - allows Macs to use Windows only scanners
Need to check this out. If anyone else has used it please let me know.
• The Web Conferencing Blog
Information on web conferencing, e-learning and distance learning software
• Top 10: Top 10 PDF Tricks
• Using Acrobat Stamps to Sign Documents
Printing out documents just to sign them is a waste of time. If you spend a little time setting up this process you can save a bunch in the long-run
• Yep - tag PDFs with Mac software
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: PDF for Lawyers, 28 April 2008
Posted by Sabrina Pacifici: “www.fueleconomy.gov helps consumers make informed fuel economy choices when purchasing a vehicle and helps them achieve the best fuel economy possible from the cars they own...it is maintained jointly by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The site helps fulfill DOE and EPA’s responsibility under the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 1992 to provide accurate MPG information to consumers."
• Find and Compare Cars: Gas mileage (MPG), greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution ratings, and safety information for new and used cars and trucks. Compare Side-by-Side; Search by Class
• Print the 2008 Fuel Economy Guide
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: beSpacific - Accurate, focused law and technology news by Sabrina I. Pacifici. 28 April 2008. Copyright ©2002-2007. BeSpacific LLC. All Rights Reserved. Subscribe <http://www.bespacific.com/mt/subscribe.html>.
In the news: “If you're handing out BlackBerrys like candy in the workplace, you better have a policy in place to ward off potential overtime lawsuits. That's the advice many lawyers are shelling out to employers using hand-held devices to allow wired-up employees to work anywhere, anytime.”
Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 28 April 2008. Copyright 2008. ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.
From the e-newsletter: “Everywhere we go these days, the people around us are busy utilizing their high tech gadgets. They may be making phone calls, sending emails, surfing the Internet, creating work-related documents, listening to music, watching videos - the list goes on and on. And all of these activities can be performed on wireless devices that are as small as a deck of cards.”
Source: FindLaw’s Modern Practice: Law & Technology. 25 April 2008. Copyright © 2008 FindLaw, a Thomson Business. Subscribe <http://newsletters.findlaw.com/>.
Posted by Bonnie Schucha: “It seems that David Hobbie over at Caselines is very impressed with PreCYdent. He ran a sample search in several databases, both free and commercial, and was surprised with the results:
I was stunned by the results of my search for IPJ on PreCYdent. The top six cases were the leading U.S. Supreme Court cases I studied in Prof. Reimann's jurisdiction class. Each of them is fundamental to an understanding of the application of personal jurisdiction in federal courts. I have never seen a such a highly relevant set of search results on any electronic case search engine. Not in Westlaw. Not in Lexis. Not anywhere....
A look on the PreCYdent team list and firm description site has a clue."PreCYdent search technology is able to mine the information latent in the "Web of Law", the network of citations among legal authorities. This means it is also able to retrieve legally relevant authorities, even if the search terms do not actually occur or occur frequently in the retrieved document."
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: WisBlawg, 21 April 2008
Posted by Susan Cartier Liebel: “Yesterday's Tip of the Week proved fortuitous. I encouraged my readers to investigate BradsDeals.com and I also cautioned them to check the sales advertised because I was upset a sale alert on Wii wasn't as stated in the daily e-mail notice I received…
What system do you have in place to first identify then acknowledge misinformation and then following up with people who take the time to discuss you positively (or negatively) on the internet and/or through word-of-mouth? How do you take a potential negative and turn it into a positive when your reputation is questioned or your virtues extolled?
Recommendation: Track your personal name, firm name on Google Alerts or similar service. For more in depth tracking I recommend paying for a service such as Andiamosystems.com who advertises as follows:
Pssst...people are talking about you. Your business. Your products. Your competitors. Your customers. On the millions of blogs, forums, social networks, review sites & message boards. On mainstream media and PR newswires. Listen, understand and you'll prosper.
(How did I learn about Andiamo? In checking my referring stats these past three days I noticed them as a referring site several times. Someone's been monitoring their 'buzz' on my site following their brand's recent mention in my post on Friday.)
Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Build a Solo Practice, LLC., 28 April 2008
Posted by David Bilinsky: “If you maintain a web site or a blog, you want to know who is linking to your site. If you have a blog, you can use Technorati to see how many blogs are referencing your blog and to create a list of those links. But it is difficult to see the linking in a graphical manner.
Hello Touchgraph! This website allows you to explore the relationships between websites or blogs. You type in the URL of your web site or blog (or any other web site or blog in which you are interested), and you obtain a graphical view of the links to that site or blog.
It is a wonderful way of viewing who is reaching out to touch you…!”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Thoughtful Legal Management, 21 April 2008
From the e-newsletter: “When your office hours end, your law firm's Web site stays open for business. Faced with a pressing legal problem, most people today turn to the Internet as a 24-hour-a-day tool for researching issues and looking for representation. Online inquiries can come in anytime, from anywhere, but can be lost just as quickly. Giving prospects the information they're looking for, and providing it fast, is critical to your success in closing online leads.”
Source: FindLaw’s Marketing News: Information on Marketing Trends. 25 April 2008. Copyright © 2008 FindLaw, a Thomson Business. Subscribe <http://newsletters.findlaw.com/>.
From the site: “The raid of a polygamist compound in West Texas has raised some important issues of rights of children, women and family as well as religion. Host and Law.com blogger, Bob Ambrogi turns to the experts, Attorney Betsy Branch, from the firm of McCurley, Orsinger, McCurley, Nelson & Downing, LLP and lawyer and social critic, Wendy Kaminer, blogger on civil liberties at thefreeforall.net, to discuss the aftermath of the raid of the FLDS compound. Bob, Betsy and Wendy will explore DNA testing, civil liberties, the question of child abuse vs. religion, a sect’s legal rights and the fate of the children.
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The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Legal Talk Network, 25 April 2008
Posted by JD Hull: “And not just because of the compelling title. It's by Newport Beach trial lawyer and writer J. Craig Williams of May It Please The Court. It covers, in an irreverent way, how "real life" becomes "real litigation". Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski has written the book's foreword. How to Get Sued: An Instructional Guide is already hitting best seller lists--and it's not even out yet.”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: What About Clients?, 24 April 2008
Posted by Allison Shields: “I read something recently that indicated that by 2009, workers will spend up to 41% of their time at work managing their email. (Is that really possible?!) Another survey conducted last year on behalf of Fuser.com, found that internet users spend approximately 7 hours each week managing email and social networking accounts. That's a significant amount of time. And it's even more if you're searching for important client emails or emails that contain information that you can't seem to find anywhere else.
Some tips for managing your email:
• Think about what kinds or categories of email you receive…
• Create separate folders for client email and email that requires action;
• Set up rules and filters that will automatically place messages in the correct folder and help you to see at one glance whether you've got emails from clients that need to be addressed;
• If you get a lot of conversation-based email, you might want to sort your email by thread, conversation or subject to help you follow the conversation, stay current and not repeat what others have already said;
• Know your priorities - which email relates to high value activities, clients or potential opportunities, and which email is less important?...
• Change subject lines of emails to better reflect the topic being discussed and for easier sorting and searching in the future;
• As you go through your emails on a regular basis, you may have some information that you want to save simply for reference purposes or for review later. Categorize those emails the same way you'd categorize the information if it was on paper…
• Once you've sorted important emails into folders, saved them to the client file and deleted them from your inbox…
• Create a schedule for reviewing and deleting email on a regular basis."
The full text of this post is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Legal Ease Blog, 24 April 2008
Posted by Ron Friedmann: “Legal process outsourcing continues to make the news in mainstream media. This time its Time. And now it’s time to ask where we are in LPO adoption.
The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Business Week have covered LPOs. Call My Lawyer … in India (Time, 3 April 2008) opens with a point not usually voiced. It quotes a lawyer who “says he’s ethically obligated to do what’s best for his clients, ‘and that includes saving them money’.” The General Counsel of TransUnion (N.B.: another law department on the record about outsourcing) cites document review savings of 85% versus the domestic alternative. Interesting that many BigLaw partners on record in the legal trade press focus on the potential risks and overlook what may be another ethical duty.
Time reports the potential confidentiality issue. It does cite the numerous security measures Integreon takes (full disclosure: I work for Integreon) but leaves the issue open. Does this situation remind you of anything?
If you worked in the legal market in the early 1990s, it should remind you of lawyer adoption of e-mail. Many resisted e-mail - why, it might not be safe!! Who knows where a message goes once I hit send!!!!!! Never mind that doubters happily sent confidential faxes to hotels where it was guaranteed a third party would see (if not read) the fax. Never mind the Fedex disclaimer explicitly did not guarantee privacy.
Today, it’s hard to find a lawyer who does not use e-mail. And it’s not that the infrastructure is more secure. What finally drove adoption was widespread use of e-mail by clients. Interestingly, many clients today move highly sensitive data around the world, both among their own operations and to third parties, including outsourcers in India.
Legal outsourcing may not achieve the near 100% adoption of e-mail. It seem likely though, that it will share a similar attitudinal outcome with e-mail: in a few years, most lawyers will wonder what all the fuss and worry was about.”
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Strategic Legal Technology, 10 April 2008
Posted by Brian J. Ritchey: “One of the observations in the 2007 Law Firm Economic Survey by LexisNexis and a focus of the 2008 Survey (in progress) relates to cash flow. According to the 2007 Survey, all firms had a slow billing cycle. On average it took firms 170 days from providing a service to collecting payment on it. In non-service industries that would be a recipe for bankruptcy. Law firms enjoy high margins, so once the firm initially weathers the 80 or so days before the cash starts coming in, it can survive the slow cycle. Unless the cycle stops.
How will you know when clients stop paying? How long do you have until your cash flow reduces to a trickle? Measuring your billing cycle times is critical in answering these questions.
Long billing cycles hide what may be slowly killing your firm - inefficiencies, declining business, etc. If you aren't measuring your performance in converting work to cash, you may not know that your firm is in a crisis for several months, wasting valuable time to act.
Below is an example chart that shows how you can measure the billing cycle by just tracking your unbilled fees, billed fees, and collected fees.
[Click on the source site listed below to view the chart]
To determine unbilled fees, take your work in process that is currently unbilled and not subject to mark-down (to the extent known) for the prior "rolling" 12 months. Do the same for fees billed and fees collected. From that you can determine your average days to bill, days to pay and average AR days fees outstanding. Lowering any of these numbers will increase cash flow and provide additional liquidity to the firm.
The above takes a look at the billing cycle from the firm perspective. You can also do this analysis on a timekeeper or practice area. Tools such as Juris' Active Information can not only track your billing cycle but can also drill down into the "why", exposing inefficiencies that are hampering your ability to maintain liquidity and giving you an opportunity to act to increase cash flow before it slows.
Click on the graphic above to download a spreadsheet to use with your firm's numbers. You must be a registered user to download content.”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: More Partner Income, 25 April 2008
Posted by Carolyn Elefant: “How can you tell that environmental business is the next dot-com? Look no further than the number of green trademark applications filed -- nearly 300,000 in 2007, according to this story at Sustainable Life Media. Use of the word "green" dominated applications, appearing in 2,400. Other top usages included:
Clean : 900 applications, up from 800 in 2006
Earth : 900, up from from 550 in 2006
Eco : 900 applications, more than doubling in number from 2006
Organic : 700 applications, up 57 percent over 2006
Environment : 450 applications, up from 325 in 2006
Friendly : 180 applications, up 88 percent over 2006
As the story points out, the term "green" is not particularly distinctive and thus, many of the applications may not result in the grant of a trademark.”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Legal Blog Watch, 24 April 2008
“Virtually Blind: Writer and intellectual property attorney, Benjamin Duranske, blogs about legal issues that affect virtual worlds, or 3-dimensional networked environments where people come together to interact in some way. "Many people, including me," writes Duranske, "[B]elieve that we aren't just seeing a bunch of play and social places, but the emergence of the 3D internet. Basically, we think that the internet is going to look more like an interactive movie than a newspaper in 5-10 years. If this is right, whatever legal issues you see involving web sites now, you're going to see involving 3D spaces in the future."
As Duranske points out, we don't have to await the future to experience the legal issues. Plenty of comments already appear in the Virtual Law subcategories, which include familiar topics such as contract law and criminal law. The blog also features RSS feeds for posts and comments.”
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: TVC Alert Research News, 23 April 2008, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/transfer.asp?xmlFile=apr08/23apr08.xml
Posted by Darren Rowse: “Many bloggers suffer from the daily grind of having to find new posts for their blog - but what if there was an easier way? What if your next post was right before you in the activities that you do each day?
One great way to find new content for your blog is to capture things that you do in your daily routine that relate to your topic and then to present them as a blog post.
This won’t relate to every blog topic but many of us are living lives that are a gold mine of content - we just need to learn to capture and repurpose it.
Let me give you five examples of how to capture and repurpose daily activities for blog content:
1. Use your answer to a reader question as a post…
2. Use someone’s email answer to you as a post…
3. Document how you complete a task…
4. Video yourself doing something…
5. Record a conversation as a podcast or videocast…
The Key to Capturing Daily Life and Repurposing for Content
The main advice I’d give with each of these strategies is to keep it relevant to your blog. While the occasional blogger seems to get away with posting pictures of their latest meal, video of what their cat did to their new couch etc - this is probably not going to go down too well on most of our niche focused blogs.
The key is to find daily activities that you can draw on that also relate to what your blog is about and that will be useful to your readers…”
The full text of this post is available at the source site listed below.
Source: ProBlogger, 25 April 2008
In the news: “Whether as attorneys, IT administrators or otherwise, we're all project managers. IT veteran Mark Gerow shows how legal professionals can use Microsoft SharePoint 2007 to create a simple yet powerful tool to streamline project management at law firms. No programming required!”
Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 25 April 2008. Copyright 2008. ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.
From the e-newsletter: “What is a traffic violation "points" system? What's the difference between a moving violation and a "fix-it" ticket? How do you go about fighting a traffic ticket in court? Get answers to these questions and much more -- including state-specific information on a number of common traffic violations -- in FindLaw's Traffic Tickets Center.”
Source: FindLaw’s Public Advisor. 24 April 2008. Copyright © 2008 FindLaw, a Thomson Business. Subscribe <http://newsletters.findlaw.com/>.
From the blog: “I was reading about an interesting policy at a fairly progressive technology company based in a major city. They have about 400 employees or so and an interesting policy when it comes to buying their employees lunch. Quite simply, their policy is “we’ll buy you lunch if you eat with someone you’ve never gone to lunch with before.”
…This policy (program is a better phrase, I think) is interesting because it introduces employees to each other. In a company with about 400 employees, an individual employee probably doesn’t know every other employee. This policy / program makes for a nice way to get to know other employees. You can go out to lunch with your friends for the first week or two, but eventually, if you want free lunches, you’ll have to start going out to lunch with people you don’t know….
This program is very much like the old time trick of putting a pizza or food spread next to the new guy’s desk. Doing so encourages other employees to go over, introduce themselves casually, and get to know their new co-worker. This works really well in smaller companies, but as companies grow, this becomes slightly more complicated. You can still do it for each department or team, but for the entire company, it’s hard to put a pizza next to the new guy’s desk and assume everyone will know where it is.
This program is a great culture and team builder. When employees know the people they’re working with, chances are they are going to be more productive and like their jobs more.”
Full text of this interesting concept post is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Service Unlimited, 21 April 2008
Posted by David Swanner: “I got this idea from Cheryl Leone in Raleigh. At the beginning of April, we started leaving the office at 1:00 p.m. on Fridays.
We cut the lunch hour from an hour to half an hour and came in half an hour early each day of the week. Then we work through lunch on Friday and leave at 1:00 p.m.
This give the employees time to schedule doctor’s appointments, get their hair cut, make appointments, run errands or just start the weekend early.
The nice thing about it is that they have a set time off each week to take care of things if they need to. Plus, it’s nice to have Friday afternoons off in the summertime at the beach.”
Source: South Carolina Trail Law Blog, 16 April 2008
Posted by Evan Schaeffer: “Do lawyers have a duty to control their clients during depositions? Take a look at this recent article from Law.com--
Lawyer and Client Sanctioned Over Client's Conduct, Use of 'F Word' During Deposition
A federal judge has levied sanctions of more than $29,000 on a lawyer and his client after finding that a deposition was a "spectacular failure" because of the client's constant use of vulgar language and insults and dodging or refusing to answer questions, and his lawyer's failure to rein him in.
In his 44-page opinion in GMAC Bank v. HTFC Corp., U.S. District Judge Eduardo C. Robreno found that Aaron Wider, the CEO of HTFC, engaged in "hostile, uncivil, and vulgar conduct, which persisted throughout the nearly 12 hours of deposition testimony."
In defending his actions, the lawyer representing the allegedly vulgar client said that he tried to control his client, but that his actions took place off the record. The judge's response? "[E]ven if this assertion is to be believed, [the client's] continuing misconduct indicates that whatever efforts [the lawyer] made were woefully ineffectual. In fact, [the lawyer's] meek attempts to intercede and his otherwise silent toleration of [the client's] conduct only emboldened [the client] to further flout the procedural rules."
So there you go: control your clients in depositions. If you can't, it probably means you shouldn't be representing them in the first place. I sure wouldn't.
Related posts:
1. "Controlling Your Client During Deposition."
2. "Defending Depositions: Correcting Your Client's Unintentional Errors."
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: The Illinois Trial Practice Weblog, 22 April 2008
Posted By Tom Kane: “Naturally, one might think every lawyer is responsible, or maybe the managing partner if it has to be brought down to a single individual. My initial reaction was the former, but after reading the article “The Power of One” by Marcie Borgal in The Complete Lawyer, I’ve come up with a different take on the issue. Marcie is a senior strategic analyst with The BTI Consulting Group in Wellesley, MA.
Her article starts with:
“A research study recently conducted (by BTI) … revealed a startling fact. Having a single individual accountable for firm-wide client service boosts per attorney profits by up to 41.2%”
… Law firms “typically draw client service executives from the ranks of their most well-respected attorneys,” according to Marcie. In most cases, I presume in most firms that person is likely to be the managing partner. But, that may not always be the case.
For instance, Philadelphia’s Ballard Spahr has hired a full time in-house “Client Interviewer” and Seattle’s Stanislaw Ashbaugh has a Chief Results Officer on staff (with a prominent link from the firm’s home page).
It looks like some law firms are really taking client service issues – and, more importantly client satisfaction – seriously. As Marcie says, “[C]lients translate these approaches as an expression of interest and investment in them, their priorities and their concerns.” I think it is just smart legal marketing!
I[t] certainly doesn’t hurt if, in addition to “happy-camper clients,” the firm’s profits increase by more than 40% in the bargain.”
Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Legal Marketing Blog.com, 24 April 2008
In the news: “A small but growing number of law firms, concerned that attorneys and staff are torn between family emergencies and demanding jobs, are expanding programs providing backup child care to include parents. So when paralegal Jack Stoerger's mother was struck by a car in September, he didn't have to worry about choosing between caring for his mother and going to work. That's because Stoerger's firm, Hunton & Williams, last year expanded its benefits package to include temporary care for elderly family members.”
Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 24 April 2008. Copyright 2008. ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.
From the blog: “Thanks to the Legal Writing Prof Blog for mentioning this article about how law firms are using legal writing instructors to support and train their lawyers.
Let’s see, if lawyers need help with the sort of writing they studied in law school and do every day, then they could well need help with the sort of writing they never studied and do on occasion, and that’s promotional writing: client alerts, magazine articles, blog posts, etc.
And if you don’t think client alerts and magazine articles and blog posts are promotional, then consider this: why do you suppose lawyers take the time to write such things?”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Set in Style, 14 April 2008
Posted by Genie Tyburski: “This article outlines technologies for improving on the use of keyword and Boolean queries for electronic discovery. It covers several methods of concept searching, including clustering, use of taxonomies and ontologies, and Bayesian search systems.
It further discusses the outcome of a study, which "used a test set of 7 million documents that had been made available to the public pursuant to a Master Settlement Agreement between tobacco companies and several state attorneys general." The outcome will not come as a surprise to librarians.
"[A]lthough the Boolean searches generally outperformed the alternative search protocols, the methods did not necessarily retrieve the same responsive documents. In fact, when all of the responsive documents found by the 31 alternative runs were combined, TREC discovered that the alternative search runs collectively had located, on average, an additional 32 percent of the responsive documents in each topic. As a result, while the Boolean search generally equaled or outperformed any of the individual alternative search methods, those searches also captured at least some responsive documents that the Boolean search had missed."
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: TVC Alert Research News, 23 April 2008, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP, http://www.virtualchase.com/tvcalert/transfer.asp?xmlFile=apr08/23apr08.xml
Posted by Sabrina Pacifici: “News release: "Between 2005 and 2006 the number of state and federal prisoners who were HIV-positive decreased 3.1 percent – from 22,676 to 21,980 inmates, according to a report by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Another BJS report estimated that 44 percent of state inmates and 39 percent of federal inmates reported a current medical problem other than a cold or a virus."
• HIV in Prisons, 2006 (NCJ-222179), and Medical Problems of Prisoners (NCJ-221740) were written by BJS Statistician Laura M. Maruschak
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: beSpacific - Accurate, focused law and technology news by Sabrina I. Pacifici. 23 April 2008. Copyright ©2002-2007. BeSpacific LLC. All Rights Reserved. Subscribe <http://www.bespacific.com/mt/subscribe.html>.
In the news: “One of the unspoken realities of life in law is that the whole thing runs on fear. Upon entering law school to becoming a lawyer, there is fear of not billing enough hours, not bringing in business, not making partner, not being home enough. Professional coach and psychotherapist James Dolan explains that fear is one's preparation to survive when the senses signal that the environment contains a threat, and that lawyers can actually use fear to better themselves and their legal practices.”
Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 23 April 2008. Copyright 2008. ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.
From the blog: “Constrained Choice: Why Are Some Women and Men Able To Create and Maintain Healthy Lifestyles, While Others Are Not?
[Their] Source: RAND Corporation
This fact sheet describes a model of constrained choice that explains how policy decisions at the family, work, community, and government levels can have unintended consequences that ultimately produce differences in men’s and women’s health.
+ Full Document (PDF; 139 KB)"
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Docuticker, 22 April 2008
Posted by Julie Fleming-Brown: “In listening to conversations about leadership development, I’ve noticed a tendency that at first I attributed to a slip of the tongue. People say things like, “So good management – I mean, leadership – requires [this that and the other].” Some people even suggest that management and leadership are really the same thing and that “leadership” sounds more enticing, so more lawyers (both at the associate and partner/management levels) are willing to play along.
I completely disagree.”
(Read the rest of the entry…)
Continue reading this interesting post at the source site listed below.
Source: Life at the Bar, 16 April 2008
Posted by Tom Kane: “Mid-sized and small law firms that specialize in “banking and finance litigation” have significant opportunities to pick up work that would normally go to large law firms. The reason is that BigLaw may be conflicted out of these cases according to an article in the New York Lawyer pointing out that “BigLaw Conflicts Give Smaller Firms Big Role in Market Crisis.” (free subscription required). The article also appears in Law.com's Small Firm Business…
If your firm does some of this work, you might want to crank up your legal marketing efforts in that direction.”
Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Legal Marketing blog.com, 22 April 2008
Posted by Raymond Ward: “John Paschetto, a Delaware lawyer, has written an excellent article on proofreading. In it, he explains the difference between editing and proofreading, advocates proofreading in stages, and offers valuable tips to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your proofreading. (Hat tip to Legal Writing Prof Blog.)”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: The (New) Legal Writer, 10 April 2008
Posted by Wayne Schiess: “A commenter writes:
Writing is a fundamental skill. Law schools should put much greater emphasis on this fundamental. Those students who didn't develop good writing skills before they got to law school should take more than one or two legal writing courses. At the least, they should demonstrate a mastery of grammar before they're awarded a law degree.
No one can really argue with any of these points. And some law schools are doing more and better writing training. But writing education in law schools will not rise to the level this commenter would like. I offer two reasons.
First, mastering professional writing takes too long and is too big a job for law schools…
Second, law schools--especially top ones--turn out thousands of lawyers every year, and these lawyers get high-paying jobs doing sophisticated work for large clients who pay high fees…
Sure, I think it's disappointing and sometimes disgraceful that shoddy or even mediocre legal writing is everywhere. But the shoddiness and mediocrity don't seem to be causing big problems. The work gets done, the deal closes, the case goes to trial, and the brief gets filed and wins the case. Either there's not much real cost from bad legal writing, or it's very hard to measure.
On a related note, this is why it's hard for me to sell my services as a plain-English reviser. Why would a bank hire me to revise its home-loan documents into plain English? Are consumers complaining about the writing? Not much. Are the regulators criticizing the bank's forms? Not much. Is the bad writing causing litigation or other problems? Not much. The current documents work, so why pay to have them fixed?
Frankly, the law rolls on quite lucratively for many lawyers, so there's little incentive to improve legal writing. But we still try.”
The full text of this article is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Wayne Schiess’s Legal-Writing Blog, 18 April 2008
Posted by Kevin O’Keefe: “Blogger and podcaster liability was the subject of this WEEK in LAW with Denise Howell. It was a pleasure to be a guest with Karl Susman, who offers blog insurance from his agency, Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging and social media expert, and Victor Cajiao, a podcasting veteran.
May be worth a listen as we covered a range of issues including defamation, insurance coverage for bloggers, anonymity, corporate blogging, and blogging policies.
You may download a MP3 file which has been edited down to 21 minutes.”
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: Real Lawyers Have Blogs, 19 April 2008
Posted by Ben Stevens: “It's becoming somewhat "old news" nowadays. Objective testing by yet another highly respected magazine has concluded that Macs are better than PCs -- in both desktop and laptop versions.
This time, it was Popular Mechanics recently ran two comparison tests in its May 2008 edition. The desktop competition featured the iMac vs. Gateway One, and the notebook version featured the MacBook vs. Asus M51SR. You can read the full article HERE, but a summary is listed below, in Popular Mechanics' own words:
In both the laptop and desktop showdowns, Apple’s computers were the winners. Oddly, the big difference didn’t come in our user ratings, where we expected the famously friendly Mac interface to shine. Our respondents liked the look and feel of both operating systems but had a slight preference toward OS X. In our speed trials, however, Leopard OS trounced Vista in all-important tasks such as boot-up, shutdown and program-launch times. We even tested Vista on the Macs using Apple’s platform-switching Boot Camp software—and found that both Apple computers ran Vista faster than our PCs did.
[His] Source: "Mac vs. PC: The Ultimate Lab Test for New Desktops & Laptops" by Glenn Derene, published in Popular Mechanics."
The active links are available at the source site listed below.
Source: The Mac Lawyer, 18 April 2008
Posted by Jim Hassett: “A few weeks ago, I had lunch with the general counsel at a Fortune 500 firm, and we got talking about some of his best, and worst, experiences with law firms. Maybe it was just the questions I asked, but he seemed to have a lot more experiences in the worst category.
His central message was that ‘Social events and personal relationships just don’t matter like they used to. These days, if a firm wants a steady flow of new business, they must deliver value.’”…
Continue reading Part 1 at Legal Business Development, 12 March 2008