Month: July 2019

One of the challenges in building or maintaining a law practice is the need to continually develop new clients and/or engagements. Direct face-to-face solicitation of individual clients is still a prohibited activity for most lawyers. Law firm marketing is now often handled in part by a professional at larger law firms, but associates soon learn that they had better develop their own book of business if they want to make partner. And for the medium-sized to small law firms, this often gets added to the list of tasks of a lawyer who already has too much on his or her plate. It is still an amazing and silly thing to me that some jurisdictions expressly prohibit granting MCLE credit for presentations on marketing and client development. One of the greatest challenges to any business, but especially a professional services firm, is presenting themselves to the public. So if there are concerns about how advertising and marketing is done appropriately and professionally, one would think good training in that area would be essential.

But one thing lawyers have told me consistently over the years and one thing I share in my client development presentations is that your very best clients—those who trust you, are easy to work with and pay their bills on time—are those who come to your firm via referrals. If someone they know and trust shares your name and says you can be trusted, that is a huge positive first step in building a great attorney-client relationship. Building a professional network is its own challenge and so I wrote a column on Building and Maintaining Your Professional Network. Having a network of people who know you and take an interest in referring clients to you is a valuable resource. But developing one is not easy. i hear stories from lawyers all the time of attending “networking” events and finding themselves only talking to a few people in attendance that they already knew. There are different ways of networking and you have to find one that meets your needs.

I reached out to Mike Whelan, author and host of the Lawyer Forward conferences, after seeing some of his Twitter discussions about building your tribe and he shared some valuable insights, including the fact that your tribe likely cannot be as large as you might think it should be. I also covered what to do if a formerly good referral source “drys up” and how to avoid that happening. Spoiler Alert: “Nothing” is not the correct answer. I hope you enjoy Building and Maintaining Your Professional Network.

This week I am taking a look back at a few things I should have blogged about in 2018, but didn’t. More details on the reasons why later.

One of our best Digital Edge podcasts of 2018 was The Cloudy Ethics of Cloud Computing with Lucian I. Pera. Lucian is a partner with Adams and Reese, LLP and writes the Ethics column for ABA’s Law Practice Magazine. He was named the youngest member of the ABA Ethics 2000 Commission, was ABA Treasurer for 2011-2014 and served on the ABA Board of Governors. We have co-presented on the intersection of legal ethics and technology together before and he is a most engaging and knowledgeable presenter.

My most frequent discussion topic with lawyers is cloud computing and their top two concerns are security and the legal ethics implications. If you have an interest or concern in that area, you will enjoy this podcast.

And if you do not like listening to podcasts (Sharon and I will try not to take offense), there is a transcript of the podcast at the podcast link.

This week I am taking a look back at a few things I should have blogged about in 2018, but didn’t. More details on the reasons why later.

Long ago when I practiced consumer bankruptcy law, I used to think about the precise meaning of tools of the trade. Oklahoma opted out of the federal bankruptcy exemptions and we use the state statutory exemptions instead. One of the exemptions was “Implements of husbandry necessary to farm the homestead and tools, apparatus and books used in any trade or profession of such person or a dependent of such person” with a limit as to total value. Once I had to research how that applied to lawyers and concluded that law books were covered.

Today, of course, the physical law firm research library has given way to digital research tools. In 2018 I wrote a column called The Lawyer’s Tools of the Trade, which also linked back to a similar article I had written long before called Equipping the Law Office 2012. (I note boldly predicting in the 2012 piece that fax machines would be disappearing.)

Many of the tools mentioned are still my most-used tools today. So, as you read The Lawyer’s Tools of the Trade, give a thought to what your favorite tools are today and whether you may be using an older version that may be comfortable, but might not be the latest version. Perhaps it’s time to update to the current version..