Category Archives: Practice Management

Posted on

Closing a Client’s File

by

One of the things I have noticed is that most attorneys don’t bother to think about file storage and retention until they start running out of room to store their files. The key, of course, is to address file retention, storage, and destruction at the beginning of your client relationship, not years after it has ended and you are trying to clean out your file room.

For some good tips on creating a good file retention policy, check out Jim Calloway’s recent article on Closing the Client’s File.

Check out Jim’s article and start putting your file retention policy together now, not when you are out of storage space.

___________________

I am traveling right now and wouldn’t normally be posting. However, I am giving Sean’s challenge the college try.

Posted on

Make Sure Your Communication is a Two Way Street

by

Many of us get into a habit of doing things in a certain manner. Once we develop these habits, it’s often very difficult for us to change them. However, we must remember that, just because we do things a certain way, that does not mean that everyone else does it the same way.

This is especially true when dealing with our clients. We need to keep in mind that the way things work in the legal world, is not the way that things work in the real world. If your client sends you an email to ask you a question, he probably does not want you to respond to him with a letter. On the other hand, if your client always calls you and never uses his email, maybe your best communication with him is via phone, not email.

Please note that I am posting this gentle reminder because I don’t want to rant about a person I am dealing with who insists on responding to my emails by mailing me documents. I don’t understand his obsession with doing this and it is driving me crazy. In fact, based on our coorespondence thus far, I have concluded that I will be purchasing my services through someone other than him.

Posted on

I was Recently Interviewed

by

Recently Peter Olson (also known as Solo in Chicago) interviewed me via email. Apparently I blathered on too much because he has broken my interview up into different parts. However, the first part of the interview can be found here.

Incidentally, if you are not reading Solo in Chicago, you should be. In addition to being a great guy and a good friend, Peter also has some great posts detailing the challenges of practicing law as a solo (most of which apply to small firms as well). I especially enjoy the behind the scenes looks that he gives us into his practice.

Posted on

Good News from the FTC

by

The FTC has announced that it is delaying the implimentation date of the Red Flags Rules from August 1 until November 1. This is good, although not great, news. The FTC has not backed off its position that the rules apply to law firms. However, the delay does give the ABA some additional time to try to lobby to keep these rules from being applied to law firms at all.

Posted on

Red Flags Options

by

In an attempt to combat a problem that does not exist, the FTC, has implemented rules that go into effect on August 1, 2009, requiring attorneys to have a written plan to identify and respond to red flags that indicate possible identity theft. Certainly these rules make sense for certain industries. However, I would challenge the FTC to provide me with an example of any situation in which identity theft was an issue with an attorney that “extended credit” to a client by allowing the client to time to pay their bill.

Certainly identity theft is a problem in today’s world. However, if we focus our efforts on making sure that identity theft does not occur in lawyer’s offices or doctor’s offices, I think we are going to be wasting a whole lot of effort with no reward.

Never one to allow reason to stand in the way of implementing a rule, however, the FTC has decreed that the rule applies to attorneys who allow their clients time to pay their bills. Thus, as of August 1, 2009, your office likely needs to have a written Identity Theft Prevention Program in place.

You havea couple of options to make compliance with this ridiculous rule as painless as possible. First the FTC has a site explaining the rule and linking to a PDF that helps you create your own program. Additionally, Jim Calloway has a great post that details the types of things that an attorney should consider in implimenting their written Identity Theft Prevention Program. To give further credit where due, much of what Jim has to say comes from Judith D. Equels, Director of The Florida Bar’s Law Office Management program.

Regardless, check out Jim’s post and c0mplete your program before the due date arrives.

Posted on

With Monitors, Size Does Matter

by

A recent study from the University of Utah reveals something that anyone who uses larger and/or multiple monitors already know: If you use a larger monitor or multiple monitors, you are more productive. Specifically,

People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones.

The Wall Street Journal Business Technology Blog further reports:

The study concluded that someone using a larger monitor could save 2.5 hours a day. But James Anderson, the professor in charge of the study, tells the Business Technology Blog to take that result with a grain of salt: It assumes that someone will work non-stop for eight hours, which no one will, and that the tasks they perform will all benefit from a larger screen, which isn’t always the case. But things like moving data between files are ideally suited to bigger or multiple screens. Anderson, who uses a computer with two 20-inch screens and one 24-inch one, recommends that businesses take the time to match employees with the proper size screen based on job requirements.

If you have never tried using multiple monitors, you should. If you are unsure where to start, have an article about using multiple monitors on my Files page. Also, don’t forget your staff. It’s great if you increase your productivity, but don’t leave your staff using 15 inch CRT, while you are using 24 inch LCDs. You want your staff to be productive as well.

Posted on

Meeting Clients at a Location Other than your Office

by

One of the great benefits of incorporating technology into your practice is that you can practice anywhere. For many people, this means that they have foregone the expense of an office and are working only from home. Chuck Newton recently posted about Where to Meet Clients When You Work from Home.

Chuck makes several suggestions for locations to meet. Some of these suggestions are common, such as your home, the library, and the client’s home or place of business. Chuck makes several other suggestions that I hadn’t considered such as:

Meet at the clubhouse. Many apartments, HOAs and communities have what many refer to as “clubhouses” for their communities.  I know of a couple of lawyers than have houses in these communities.  They reserve small rooms at these clubhouses to meet with clients, to schedule depositions, and the like.

Meet at the local credit union. A few credit unions want to provide services to members.  They also have meeting space they let other use.  They may not care for you much if you practice bankruptcy law, but otherwise I have met a few who make arrangements with their local credit unions to use a small space to meet with potential clients.  You might have to have an account there, but what is wrong with with having access to low interest loans by being a member of a credit union.

Meet at a real estate broker’s office. I heard from an attorney that figured out that many of these 100% real estate brokerages partially finance their operations by leasing office space to real estate agents.  Many Realtor really work at home or from their cars, but want a place to meet with potential clients.  So, these real estate brokerages provide a bank of computers, beverages, printers, copies and the like that a Realtor can use while on site and meeting rooms in which to meet, even if the Realtor does not rent an office suite.  These so-called “desk fees” often run as low as $90 a month.  The lawyer persuaded a couple of these real estate offices on either side of a large metro area to allow him the same deal.  His pitch was that it would probably be beneficial for their agents to have more immediate access to an attorney when he was around.  So for less than a couple hundred dollars a month he has all of the meeting space he needed.  Many of these offices have hundreds of Realtor that use these facilities from time to time.  That can be a built in source for referrals in and of itself, even if you do not directly practice real estate.

Meet at the community center. Many towns have community centers, mainly for more elderly people to meet, eat and have group activities.  They have spare offices and space.  Look into it.  This might be especially good if you practice elder care.

Chuck actually suggests 20 different locations for meeting places. You should click through and see all of his suggestions.

One of my favorite suggestions was:

Meet at a fast food restaurant. This is probably more challenging for most of us than meeting at a coffee shop.  Maybe it just is not as casual as a coffee house.  But, I knew an attorney that practices in the area of will contest along the entire eastern side of Texas.  He would almost always travel to meet his clients.  He figured that every small town had a McDonald’s, and he liked McDonald’s. First, he could find a booth after breakfast or lunch time that was reasonably quiet.  McDonald’s are generally clean and well maintained.  He could buy his client’s a beverage of their choice.  Many families brought their children and they could play when the parents and attorney talked.  I thought at one point that this is just not professional looking enough.  But, it almost always worked.  His standard retainer was $10,000.00.  I personally saw him walk away from these meetings with $10,000.00 checks a number of times, and this was the first time he had met the clients.

After reviewing these suggestions, I realized that they apply to those of us who still have our traditional offices. I have a suburban practice that requires me to practice law in a multi-county area. My office is conveniently located for me. However, that does not mean that it is conveniently located for my clients.

I often travel to other courthouses and while there or on the trip to or from, I may be in a convienent location to meet with my clients. This sounds like a great way to build client relations if you can schedule a client meeting close to them when you will be in the area anyway. Obviously, your schedule as well as a need for a meeting will not always matach up. However, this may be an idea to keep in mind.

Posted on

Rocket Matter is Getting Things Done

by

By now, most people have at least heard of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. The key to implementing GTD, however, is to ensure that you have a good system that fits the GTD philosophy.

Recently, Rocket Matter has written a post about how to use Rocket Matter to implement GTD. In the post, Larry Port, the guy behind Rocket Matter, explains:

We built this notion of a User Dashboard, where you can see all of your calendar events and to-do’s at a glance.  You can quickly capture next actions, then assign them to matters.

Matters in our system allow you to trap your file information, but really they can organize any information. So, you can just as easily create a matter “Rocket v. Matter” as you can a matter called “@Phone”, and assign a to-do item to either one.

You can easily re-assign a to-do item from one matter to another, allowing you to easily track your next actions.  And with Rocket Matter, all to-do’s can be converted into billable activity.

Rocket Matter is one of the new online practice management systems to hit the market. The things I have heard about it have been good. Knowning that you can easily implement the Getting Things Done system just makes it that much better.

Posted on

My Tip for the Day: Don’t Create Stupid Rules

by

My wife and I are in the process of refinancing some rental property that we own. Because we have all of our information in a digital format, we were able to send our financial info, tax info, etc., to the bank electronically. In response, the bank sent us an application that they wanted us to complete and sign. The app was emailed to use. My wife completed and we each simply stamped our signatures on the application and returned it to the bank. I am sure that this was not what the bank anticipated when they asked for our signatures, but I wasn’t terribly concerned about this.

This morning, we get an email from the bank. They can’t process our loan applications because we didn’t initial a line that appears just above our signatures. Yes, that is right. They have no problems with the signatures. But they must have actual written initials on the page before they can actually do anything with our application.

When the loan officer was asked for the reason for this. He admitted that he didn’t know why this was required. He just knew that it was.

I want to emphasize that this was an initial on a separate page to verify the info there, or anything like that. No, it was initials directly above our signatures.

The point I want to make here is that when you create rules, you should make sure that the rules have some rational basis or justification. Don’t create rules that must be blindly followed simply because someone once thought up the rule.

Posted on

The Cost of Not Going Digital

by

The Greatest American Lawyer posted today on the Cost Savings in Going Digital. If you have not yet made the move to keeping all of your documents digitally, I recommend that you check out this post. The post explains:

I’m often asked how much money it will cost in staff and time to scan in all of the documents which are generated from outside our own office onto our file server.  Essentially, people want to know whether or not a paperless law office will save, or cost, them money.

There’s no doubt that it takes people and time to scan in documents.

He goes on to observe

Scanning documents is a multi-step project.  Obviously, someone has to stand at the scanner and scan them in.  That person then has to pull the document from a common scanning file and place it on the file server under the correct client/matter.  Quality control requires that the person confirm that all pages have in fact been scanned.  This does take time.

However, this time is more than made up on the back end. The post continues:

Once the documents are scanned, however, there is lots of time saved on the back-end.  I never have to ask my staff to find me a hard copy of any document, pull a file or engage in host of related administrative activities.  My overall sense is that the amount of time it takes to scan the documents is far less than the amount of time spent in a paper-based office retrieving and organizing physical files.

I cannot agree with these observations more. My ability to retrieve any document, from any case, at any time, is absolutely invaluable. I cannot calculate the amount of time that I save on a daily basis simply by being able to immediately retrieve any document that I need.

In my experience, the only way to make this transition is to start scanning everything today. Scan every document that comes in to your office. As you work, you will identify that prior documents that you should add to your digital collection as well.

I will not tell you that the transition to a digital world will be painless. However, I can assure that it will be worth every bit of pain that you may endure. In fact, the majority of the “pain” that I endured in the transition period was the fact that I got too used to having the digital documents and I became frustrated when I had to pull a physical file to retrieve an older document that had not yet been scanned.

I have yet to meet anyone who has transferred to a digital practice that regrets it at all.