Monthly Archives: April 2008

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Do Your Clients Know What You Do?

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Recently Solo in Chicago questioned whether he should list his practice areas on his business cards. After reading his post, I remembered an encounter that I had with a client of mine. I had previously represented her in a matter. The matter was an area of law that comprises approximately 10% of my practice.

About a year after we had resolved the previous matter, she called me again. She started her conversation, “I know this isn’t the type of law that you do, but . . . .” She then proceeded to ask me a question that fell squarely into the type of law the comprises the majority of my practice.

She had taken the single matter I had represented her on, and had extrapolated it to my entire practice. In fact, however, that was a small portion of my practice. I am just glad that she called me on the next question she had, even though she did not think I practiced in that area.

Recently, I was again reminded of this story and Peter’s post when I read about a customer experience survey on the Good Experience Blog. The post explains:

A friend of mine runs a company whose site sells a wide range of products, all sharing a particular attribute. For the sake of example, let’s say his site sells organic fruit only – bananas, pears, oranges, apples, and so on – all healthy and extra-tasty.

The company then ran a customer experience survey to gauge the usability of their site. The post then explained what the company learned:

But what he really learned surprised him. It was something much more basic, and much bigger, than any tactical improvement.

Here’s what he told me when I saw him after the labs:

“The customers didn’t even realize that we only sell organic! That’s the whole point of our site, and they missed it! It totally transformed how we’re thinking about our redesign.”

I don’t have an answer to this question, but I wonder how often our clients see our practices through the narrow lens of their matter and never realize the other services that we provide. Further, what can we do to change that?

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A Great Interview with Guy Kawasaki

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Ultra Creatives 7Last night I listened to an interview of Guy Kawasaki by J.C. Hutchins. Guy is a renowned speaker and technologist. He is currently the managing director of a Venture Capital firm. He does not have anything directly to do with the law (he attended law school for two weeks and then dropped out), but in this interview, he covers a lot of ground on some very interesting topics, including social networking, working with Apple to introduce the first GUI, how to differentiate great ideas from good or bad ideas, and how to become a better public speaker.

To listen to the interview, go here. You can listen to it directly from the website, you can download it to your computer and listen to it, or you can download it to your portable music player and listen to it on that device. If you use iTunes, you can also find the interview there as well.

Regardless, if concepts of the intersection of your business with the internet and marketing interest you at all, you need to listen to this interview.

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I Chose the Waterfield Cargo

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A short time ago, I solicited suggestions from you as to what computer bag I should purchase. I heard from several people via email, all with good thoughts and suggestions. On different occasions, I almost purchased the Timbuk2 Messenger Bag and the Bum Pack Pack. I still would like to have one of each of those. Instead of those, however, I purchased the Waterfield Large Cargo Bag, with the Celeste Indium flap. I have a couple of small quibbles with this bag. However, for the most part, I love it.

Waterfield LogoFirst, it is a fantastically well made bag. The strap is very secure and easily adjustable. Also, the pad on the strap provides very comfortable cushioning. Plus, because it securely wraps around the strap (and is not attached to it) it easily slides on the strap to its most comfortable location. Additionally, the carry handles are very comfortable. They are nylon and are covered by a rubberized grip of some sort. Whatever it is, its makes it comfortable to carry the bag by the handles.

I chose the paragliding buckle for the front flap and it works easily with just one hand. The zippered pocked under the flap is sufficiently roomy to carry the miscellaneous crap that I carry with me most of the time. Additionally, the full sized pocket behind that, is sufficiently large to hold a small file, several papers, or, in my case, an umbrella. There is a similar pocket on the back side of the bag in whiclh I carry legal publications that I am in the process of reading.Waterfield Cargo

The main zippered pocket is quite roomy and will hold several legal pads as well as a reasonably full Redweld. This area also contains a place to carry your laptop. This is one aspect that I have not yet decided whether I like. With my last bag, I had two zippered pockets. One held only my computer. The other held my files. I am still getting use to having everything in the same large compartment. This seems to work fine. It is just taking me a little time to get used to it. One thing I really like about this main pocket is that it is very tall. It is very easy for me to put my power cable in the bottom of the bag and still have plenty of room to put documents on top of it.

Two of the four minor quibbles that I have with the bag are with the main zippered pocket. First, this main compartment has a handy place to store pens, a checkbook, and other miscellaneous small items. this concept is good. However, I find that I catch my fingers or my papers on these pockets when I am putting them in here. I think I would prefer if this set of pockets were moved to a second compartment. Second, the keyring holder is also in this main compartment. I typically attach my usb thumb drive to this holder. That way I can easily find the thumb drive. I am not sure that I want to do that here, though, given the likelihood that files will be setting on top of the drive if I do this. I wish this was in the zippered pocket under the flap.

Waterfield CargoThe other two minor quibbles are on the outside of the bag. First, there is no good place to attach my luggage tag with my business card on it. Right now I have it attached to the carry straps. It’s not the best location, but there is really no other place to put it. Second, there is a cell phone pocket on the end of the bag. I don’t know anyone who actually carries their cell phone in the computer bag. This pocket is just wasted space for me. I wish that it were just a little larger, however. If it were, it would be the perfect size to hold a bottle of water.

Any comments on Waterfield’s bags would not be complete without mentioning their fantastic customer service. Every time that I have dealt with them (I have previously ordered other products from them as well), I have spoken with a polite person, located in the Waterfield office in San Francisco. The person I spoke with was always able to help me and sounded glad to be able to do so. After I had received my bag, I received a call from Waterfield making sure that I had received my order (they had some sort of a mix up on their end. I am sure that they do not call all of their customers). When I returned the call, rather early in the morning (at least early for California), I am pretty sure that the Gary that I spoke with was the Gary who owns the company.

In sum, I have never seen a computer bag that was as well-made and appeared to be as sturdy as this bag. It is comfortable and easy to use. I would not hesitate to purchase this bag again.

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An Interview With Lee Goodman of MentorCLE

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MentorCLE A new CLE provider for Illinois has recently hit the internet: MentorCLE. MentorCLE has a unique approach in that, they allow you to view the CLE presentation before you pay for it. If you wish to obtain CLE credit for it, you then pay MentorCLE a fee ($19.95 per credit hour) for the course. If you don’t want or need the CLE credit, then you need not pay them anything.

I recently conducted an email interview with Lee Goodman, the guy behind MentorCLE. I think he has put together a really interesting idea with MentorCLE and I am curious to see how things work out. I encourage you to check out their site and their CLE offerings, especially if your deadline is fast approaching.

What is MentorCLE and how does it work?

www.MentorCLE.com provides Illinois MCLE Board approved continuing legal education courses as online streaming videos. Lawyers can watch the courses for free. If they want MCLE credit, they pay $19.95 per credit hour. Attorneys can buy as many or as few of their required 20 hours of credit as they want (including professionalism/ethics courses), without having to buy a subscription. An official certificate of completion is emailed automatically when an attorney registers and pays for a course by credit card.

Aren’t you afraid of giving your information away for free?

Not at all. I love that we are able to let people watch our courses for free. I enthusiastically support the Internet ethic of voluntarily sharing programs and information, and I believe there should be as few barriers to education as possible. If a lawyer wants to learn how to be a better lawyer, I’m glad to help. We happen to be at a point where access to high-speed Internet is so pervasive, and technology is so inexpensive and reliable, that we can do this. It wouldn’t have been possible just a couple of years ago.

How do you find your instructors?

I’ve been an attorney in this state for nearly thirty years, so I know a lot of good lawyers. The challenge is to find experts in their fields who are also good on camera, and so far we have succeeded. Of course, we are always looking for new instructors, so there is a form on our website where people can tell us what courses they want to view and suggest themselves or someone else to present the courses.

We use an interview format for most of our courses, which makes it a lot easier on the presenters. They don’t have to memorize an hour-long presentation and they don’t have to be skilled teleprompter readers. The format is also a lot more interesting for people who view the courses than what most other online providers do, which is to point a camera at someone who is at a lectern and let the tape run for an hour. That’s a format that is almost impossible to watch on a computer screen without falling asleep.

Are you accredited as a CLE provider in any other state? Are you considering expanding to become accredited in other states?

We are concentrating on Illinois lawyers for now. Some topics that are exclusively federal law can be useful across state lines, but a lot of what most lawyers really want and need to know is state-specific, or has to take into account state and local conditions. All of our courses are presented by Illinois instructors. This is one of the advantages we have over some out-of-state online providers that are trying to peddle courses that were produced in places like New York or California.

At some point in the future we may move into other markets, but only when we have courses that will be useful to lawyers in those other states.

How long have you been operating?

We went live in January, 2008. The first deadline for Illinois lawyers to get their MCLE credits is June 30, 2008, for lawyers whose names begin with A through M. N through Z lawyers have until June 30, 2009 to get their credits. We will be adding more courses each year.

What has been the response thus far?

We have been getting feedback, and it is universally positive. People tell us they like our low price, and they like the convenience of getting their courses on the Internet. They tell us our website is very easy to use, and they like the interview format. Almost everyone who buys one course from use comes back and buys more courses, which tells us they are satisfied with our service. And people are already telling their friends about us.

We had to make a lot of decisions as we put MentorCLE together. Because Illinois lawyers have never had to take CLE courses before, we weren’t sure whether what we came up with would be well received. So far it looks like we did it right. Of course, I’ve been putting CLE courses together for bar associations for years, so it wasn’t all guesswork. I had a pretty good idea of what lawyers wanted.

Have you thought about releasing some of your presentations as podcasts that people can listen to while driving, exercising, etc. without having to watch them?

We may add podcasts, but so far we haven’t had much demand for them. Almost all lawyers have computers, but very few use portable video-capable devices. And download times for videos to get them onto portable devices are still pretty long. If we find in the future that more lawyers are asking for this, we’ll probably add it. The same goes for audio-programming.

We have worked very hard to provide our courses in a way that is easy and convenient for lawyers to access, but we start with the fact that most lawyers are only familiar with live, in-person seminars. So we are trying to introduce online CLE in a way that will be accepted. What we know from the experience of other states, and other professions, is that online courses will very quickly become the most popular way to get CLE. We are excited to be among the first, and most innovative, providers, and we intend to keep providing courses in formats that lawyers want.

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Another Great Way to Use Adobe Acrobat

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AdobeI believe that Adobe Acrobat is one of the most under used programs that attorneys have. Many, if not most, attorneys have a copy of it on their computer. Yet, almost all of them use it for only two purposes: creating a PDF and reading a PDF that someone else sent them. Acrobat is much more powerful than that, however. I have written before about some of my favorite Acrobat tools.  You can also find several other posts relating to Acrobat by clicking the Acrobat category in the sidebar.

Today I want to point you toward a post from Ernie the Attorney on his PDF for Lawyers Blog. In the post, Ernie explains that he does not use paper in his depositions and that, instead, he refers to his electronic copies of the documents. He explains:

I have my deposition notes set up in an outline on my computer.  When I get to a place that calls for me to talk about a certain document I inform my opposing counsel what the document bates-number is, and ask him to show it to the witness.  I have all the documents bookmarked in Acrobat.  It takes me about 3 seconds to get to the document, and I make good use of the time it takes my opponent to pull the document and show it to the witness.  I have notes superimposed on the PDF and I examine those and get ready to frame my questions.  At the end of the deposition I don’t offer any documents as exhibits.  If opposing counsel asks me why I’m not doing that I tell him that the bates-numbers (which I announced on the record before starting my questions about each document) constitute sufficient reference.

If I’m attending a deposition it’s even easier.  When a document is offered I ask what the bates-number is and I just pull it up, much more quickly than if I were to wait for it to be handed over.  Plus I have my PDF notes superimposed on my copy which helps me quickly figure out the relevance of the document to my theory of the case.   And of course I can add more notes on the fly if I want to.  I also bookmark the document and indent it under a main bookmark labelled for the deposition in question.  So when the deposition is over I have a listing of all the documents that were referenced in that meeting.

I think that this is a great way to use Acrobat. Not only does it allow you to access your documents easily and quickly. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, it also keeps all of your notes with respect to a particular document in one location. As an added benefit, all of those notes are fully searchable.

Although I have not entirely abandoned paper at my depositions, I do use Acrobat to keep notes on my documents and to organize them. I have found that the PDF Package available in Acrobat 8 is a great way to package all of my deposition exhibits together in a single location.

If you are are using Acrobat only to read or create PDFs, I urge you to start exploring the other options that are available to you.

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ISBA Under 37 Candidates for Board of Governors

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It is time once again for the the annual elections for the Illinois State Bar Association. This year I have the good fortune of knowing one of the two candidates running for the Under 37 seat in both Cook County and Downstate. If you have not yet voted, I support the Peter Olson (Cook) and April Troemper (Downstate) and urge you to do the same.Peter Olson

I first met Peter a couple of years again when we presented together at the ISBA Solo and Small Firm Conference. It was a real pleasure to work with him in putting the presentation together and to present with him as well. Before I met Peter in person, I knew him from his multiple blogs: Solo in Chicago, Closing Real Estate in Chicago, and The Illinois Family Lawyer.

During the time that I have known Peter, I have come to know him as an excellent attorney who understands the challenges that solo and sApril Troempermall firm attorneys face on a regular basis. I believe that he would be an excellent addition to the Board of Governors. I just wish that I was eligible to vote for him.

In the race that I can actually vote in (which is called Downstate, despite the fact that it includes all of Illinois except for Cook County–I for one have never considered Lake County Downstate) I am supporting April Troemper. I also met April through the ISBA and I remember being impressed by her from that first conversation. She is intelligent and engaging and I believe she will honestly and thoughtfully represent the interests of all attorneys in Illinois. I am quite pleased that this year I will be able to vote for April for the Downstate Under 37 position on the Board of Governors.