Checklist for Law Firm Client Development

You head to the networking events, pockets stuffed with business cards. You've taken up golf, racquet ball, and joined the Order of St. Hubertus, all to make contact with prospective clients. You've connected with just about everyone on LinkedIn....

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Intro to Encryption for Lawyers and Small Firms

By now you've heard these terms: encryption, passcode, cybersecurity. Unless you have a technical background in software engineering, it's all Greek to you. Unfortunately, that's the kind of world we live in. We're now moving headlong into a future where...

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5 Reasons You Should Love Working in a Small Law Firm

For a long time, the track to success for lawyers was to get into a BigLaw firm and make one's way to partnership. Fortunately, attitudes about this have changed recently. Still, it would go too far to say that lots...

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10 Resources for Starting Your Own Nonprofit Firm

If you want to be a happy lawyer, consider focusing on other's needs. Really. According to a survey of 6,000 attorneys, lawyers in public interest work reported the highest levels of happiness. If you went to law school because...

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Can St. Patrick's Day Bring the Luck 'o the Irish to Your Marketing?

Slap on some green, don a funny hat, and get yourself -- and your lawyer marketing -- to the parade, for St. Patrick's Day is coming. Whether you do a St. Patrick's Day blog post, talk your snake-hating firm...

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Quick Tips for Hiring Your Law Firm's Marketing Director

Money is tight and there never seems to be enough business, so how can anyone be thinking about hiring someone to take care of firm marketing? That's a legitimate complaint for many firms that are too small to make the...

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Want More Profits? Try Putting Women in Leadership

If arguments about gender parity, viewpoint diversity, and good old-fashion equality hasn't convinced you of the importance of women in leadership, maybe this will: having women in power is connected to increased profitability. A study recently released by the...

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Police Misconduct Databases Find Use in the Courtroom

When an incident between citizens and the police takes place, oftentimes the reliability of witness testimony can hinge on the believability of witness testimony or a question of character. And persons of some ethnic and social demographics have often felt...

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How to Create a Law Firm Disaster Recovery Plan

Lawyers are not immune to disaster. When the Twin Towers were destroyed in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, so too were the offices of Sidley Austin Brown & Wood, though remarkably only one employee died. When the levies...

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When Should You Ask Another Attorney for Help?

We all need help sometimes, especially in the beginning. Other more experienced lawyers seem like an obvious choice. But at what point does asking for another attorney's help become total dependence on that other lawyer? Just keep a few things...

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3 Ways FindLaw's Updated, Free Codes Will Make Your Life Better

If you're a lawyer in the Big Apple or Baghdad by the Bay, we've got a present for you. FindLaw's California and New York Codes sections are updated, improved, and ready for you to use. Free, mobile-friendly, and brought...

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Most Outrageous Places for Lawyer Advertisements

Have you ever considered an advertising or marketing idea but dismissed it because you thought it crossed the line of good taste? We have news for you: whatever the idea was, somebody probably already beat you too it. The Internet...

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3 Ways Lawyers Can Write Better by Writing Simply

Lawyers are writers by trade, but we're not always good writers. At times, legal writing can be so convoluted that it serves more to obfuscate than illuminate. First, we're not against complex, even difficult writing. Complicated thoughts can require...

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It's Lawyer v. Lawyer in Auto Blog Defamation Dispute

A Michigan psychiatrist who also happens to sit on that state's attorney discipline board has filed Request for Investigation against a fellow attorney. The source of the dispute? Comments the attorney made on his auto-law blog. The RI filing amounts...

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Want to Expand? Hiring the Right Help Is Crucial

If you're looking to expand your practice, one of the most basic ways of doing that is through hiring an employee. But can you afford to hire another employee? Maybe you've hired one in the past only to realize that...

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ABA Takes First, Cautious Steps Towards Nonlawyer Legal Services

After contentious debate, the delegates to the ABA's midyear meeting adopted a modest proposal to give states a framework for considering regulation of "nontraditional legal service providers." The resolution does not endorse nonlawyer legal services, nor does it call...

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Old School Ways of Generating Local Client Biz for Your Law Firm

We've given a lot of attention to the topic of content marketing lately. This is crucial to staying alive in today's hectic legal market -- particularly if you're a solo. But this doesn't mean that you should disregard the good...

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When Reaching out for a Lawyer, Consumers Go for the Phone

Legal consumers might search for a lawyer online. They might check out your attorney website or browse through your blog. But when it comes time to get in touch, almost all legal consumers do so via phone....

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5 Ways to Celebrate Black History in Your Firm

It's Black History Month, the annual celebration of African American contributions to culture, society, and, of course, law. While Black History Month is hardly the card-sending, cocktail-houring, office-partying event that some other winter holidays are, it's still worth celebrating...

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How Lawyers Are Content Marketing Geniuses

We swear we're not making this up: lawyers are absolutely dominating the field of content marketing. According to Contently, law firms both large and small are getting into the game of providing regular (and useful) content for potential clients. This is...

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Do Employee Perks Matter for Law Firms?

According to data by Glassdoor, 3 out of 5 employees rate the employer's perks as being a top consideration before accepting a job. So why should lawyers be any different? Law firms aren't really known for being overly generous or...

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Recruiting for Diversity in Your Law Firm

Diversity matters. It increases the variety of viewpoints available, improves performance, and boosts revenue -- a lot. The most racially diverse companies bring in 15 times more revenue than the least diverse, according to a study by the American...

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Meet Practice Point, Thomson Reuter's Newest Legal Tool

Thomson Reuters, the company behind legal must-haves like WestLaw and FindLaw, launched its newest legal service last week: Practice Point. Practice Point seeks to make legal information more useful and easily accessible -- and hence, your work more bearable...

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Women Lawyers Seek to Persuade SCOTUS With Personal Experiences

"I am an attorney because I had an abortion," one female lawyer tells the Supreme Court. "The Court's Webster decision, issued around the same time I was seriously considering suicide rather than being forced to give birth against my...

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Cheap and Easy Tips for Marketing Your Practice

Advertising and marketing is one of the biggest expenses that small firm and solo attorneys have to face. Sooner or later, almost every small firm has advertised in a local paper or magazine. But these ads can be expensive and...

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Should Law Firms Hire Sales People?

Want to make it rain? Hire a rainmaker. And no, we're not talking about a superstar lawyer able to bring on clients with millions of dollars in billings. We're talking about a sales person. Could one be good for...

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Law Firms Are Often Non-Compliant With HIPPA

According to a survey by Legal Workspace, only 13 percent of 240 responding law firms actually possess the required technology to process and maintain compliance with HIPAA. "For an industry that is traditionally hyper-concerned with protecting client information, legal is...

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Would You Help Move Shady Money Into the U.S.?

A government official from a poor, West African country wants to move millions of dollars into the United States. Anonymously. And he needs your help. What do you do? No, this isn't a new version of the Nigerian prince...

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Client Intake: An Easy Way to Boost Law Firm Business

Thanks to the folks over at the ABA, we now have a broader view of the disaster that is law firm intake. The ABA's findings seem to only confirm the observations of FindLaw's earlier white-paper: Law firms stink at intake....

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Lawyers, Is It Time to Automate Your Email Empathy?

You want to keep in touch with clients, to let them know you're invested in their divorce, assault charge, corporate restructuring, what have you. But frankly, you're too busy working on their and everyone else's legal problems to give...

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