TechnoLawyer: SmallLaw

Originally published in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Many authors stretch an idea best suited for an article into a book. In putting together our first ever SmallLaw Summer Reading List, we searched for quality books with more than an article's worth of helpful ideas and tips. Also, we asked each author to explain why their book is worth your valuable time. Thus, you'll find our recommended books and links as well as each author's response to our question. To ensure that our SmallLaw Summer Reading List has something for everyone in the solo and small firm world, it spans two issues of SmallLaw. Part 1 today features books on legal technology and law firm marketing. Also, don't miss the SmallLaw Pick of the Week (subscribers only) to read about an in-house lawyer accused of creating and hiring a fake law firm.

THE SMALLLAW 2012 SUMMER READING LIST PART 1: TECHNOLOGY AND MARKETING BOOKS WITH MORE THAN AN ARTICLE'S WORTH OF GOOD STUFF

Have you ever read a book and thought that the author could have made his points in an article? Books don't cost much money in the grand scheme of things. But they sure cost time. Publishing an article isn't considered as prestigious as publishing a book. Thus, many authors stretch an idea best suited for an article into a book.

To combat this problem and compile our first ever summer reading list for you and other SmallLaw subscribers, we conducted research to find books with more than an article's worth of material. We also tried to find relatively concise books so that you could read more than one. And we asked each author to answer this question:

"The obstacle books face is not their cost but the investment of time they require. What will those who work in small law firms learn from your book that they cannot learn from an article or some other shorter resource?"

Thus, our SmallLaw 2012 Summer Reading List contains not only quality books, but each author's answer to our question.

If you read any of these books, please reply to this issue of SmallLaw to post a review, which we'll publish in Fat Friday.

Tom Mighell, iPad Apps in One Hour for Lawyers (2012)

The great thing about a "One Hour" book is that the investment of time to read it is not great. You can get up to speed on a topic over your lunch break.

While many articles out there discuss the best iPad apps, you're unlikely to find as much helpful information in one place about iPad apps specifically vetted for lawyers. The book presents a curated collection of apps lawyers are most likely to find useful in the areas of productivity, document creation and editing, and news and research — plus utilities for your iPad, and travel resources.

With more than 200,000 apps currently available for the iPad, it's hard for busy lawyers to cut through all the noise and focus on the apps that matter — but with iPad in One Hour for Lawyers, the work is already done for you.

iPad/iPhone Version ($17.99)

Print Version ($34.95; $19.95 for ABA LPM Members)

David Sparks, Paperless (2012)

Paperless offers a holistic approach to transitioning your law practice to a paperless workflow, explaning the nuances of capturing paper (and digital) records, and processing, naming, and storing the files. The book also explains the best strategies for backing up and accessing your digital documents using an iPad.

Paperless stretches the definition of the word "book." In addition to over 26,000 words, it features 32 screencasts and four movies. That is over an 90 minutes of video. The book not only tells you about the best paperless workflow but also shows you.

Having written two books for a major publisher in the past, Paperless really is something new entirely. You'll need an iPad to view the book in the preferred iBooks Author format. You can also purchase it as a PDF file with the videos in a separate folder.

iPad Version ($4.99)

PDF Version ($4.99)

Jan Berinstein, Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Word 2010: Tips and Tricks for Working With Pleadings, Contracts, Mailings, and Other Complex Documents (2d Edition 2012)

Obviously, any book contains much more information than a single article. But technical books aren't necessarily "linear," so individuals can learn a tremendous amount without having to read the entire book from cover to cover.

My Word 2010 book, for example, consists of dozens of tutorials that can stand on their own. Readers can jump directly to a specific lesson to master one feature of the program that they find challenging. The modular nature of the lessons is especially useful for members of a firm who are at different skill levels or who need to learn disparate aspects of Word. For example, a secretary might want to brush up on creating and generating a Table of Contents and a Table of Authorities, whereas an attorney may want to look up how to format indented quotes or how to ensure that the text aligns with pleading line numbers.

Another benefit of the book is that it includes a number of "sidebars" that provide helpful how-to and troubleshooting tips. Incidentally, all of the tutorials and tips in the book derive from my real-world experience as a legal word processor.

Print Version ($41.95)

Ben M. Schorr, the Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2010 (2012)

The reality is that there are a lot of resources out there for Microsoft Outlook, including my monthly column here in SmallLaw. Microsoft itself provides hundreds of thousands of pages of content, including videos, about Outlook. I maintain a site myself that has a lot of articles on Outlook. Google lists more than 22 million pages for Microsoft Outlook.

The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2010 saves you time and effort by collecting nearly all of the Outlook information an attorney needs in one place, and in a format written specifically for attorneys. You can spend hours searching for your answer and wondering which source to trust, or you can save a lot of time and effort by just flipping through one book written just for you.

iPad/iPhone Version ($32.99)

Print Version ($69.95; $41.95 for ABA LPM Members)

Gerry Oginski, Secrets of Lawyer Video Marketing in the Age of YouTube (2012)

The answer is simple. You'll learn tips, strategies, and tactics that will take your video marketing far and beyond the videos of 99% of other lawyers.

The book contains key strategies that you can apply not only to your video marketing, but also to every aspect of your online and offline marketing. In essence, you can multi-purpose these powerful techniques.

For example, learn how to convert a viewer into a caller. Find out why quality counts and why your viewer's thoughts are much more important than yours.

Being a great attorney means knowing not just what to do, but importantly, what not to do. This book helps you understand exactly what you should never do when creating online videos to market your law firm. Video is the key to connecting with prospective clients. Learn why and how to use those opportunities to your advantage.

Kindle Version ($12.56)

Print Version ($13.22)

Read Part 2

Read The SmallLaw 2012 Summer Reading List Part 2 now.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Written by practicing lawyers who manage successful small firms and legal technology and practice management experts who have achieved rock star status, this newsletter provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in small law firms, as well as comprehensive legal product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on February 17, 2012 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Rumor has it that Apple has 1,000 engineers working on chip design, and a similarly large number working on Siri. On top of these impressive numbers, Apple announced it would ship new versions of both iOS and OS X every year beginning with Mountain Lion this summer, and that it would open iCloud to third-party developers. In the midst of all this news, TechnoLawyer publisher Neil Squillante started hearing about embedded iPad systems, and engaged in a discussion about next-generation payment systems. So his mind began to wander about how large Apple could grow, and its impact on small law firms. The result is today's issue of SmallLaw about two lawyers named Jack and Diane. Also, don't miss the SmallLaw Pick of the Week (email newsletter only) for a contrarian take on Apple's announcements.

A Litty Ditty About Lawyers Jack and Diane: Law Practice in an Apple-Dominated Future

Jack wakes up to his iPhone 6 playing Bowie's Changes. He glances at the display. February 16, 2015. Better than that Mellencamp song from yesterday that reminded him of work. Bowie's stuttering chorus makes him think for a moment. "Was it really just three years ago that Apple announced OS X Mountain Lion? Since Apple audaciously announced it would ship major new versions of OS X and iOS every year? Since Apple's stock price reached $500 (now $1,000) and we all realized the iPad was taking over the world?"

Jack grabs his iPhone, opens the Lavazza app, and chooses an arabica ristretto shot. By the time he reaches the kitchen, his perfectly brewed cup of espresso awaits him. No sugar needed. After knocking it back, he holds down his iPhone's home button to summon Siri. "What happened since last night?"

Speaking through his Apple TV rather than through his iPhone, Siri tells Jack he has one voicemail message from his wife who is traveling and 10 email messages, including a new issue of SmallLaw (some things never change). "Shall I play your voicemail message and read your email messages?" "Just the voicemail," says Jack. "Queue up the email to play in the car. Load some Bowie songs too — just songs that charted and nothing after his Let's Dance album."

En route to his law firm, Jack stops at Target to pick up some items his wife told him to buy. At the self-checkout, the now ubiquitous embedded iPad point of sale system asks him whether he wants to pay by credit card, debit card, or Apple's iPay. Jack taps iPay and opens his iPay app on his iPhone. He enters his password, sees the virtual receipt appear in iPay, grabs the shopping bag, and heads to work.

Jack arrives at the office park. He swipes his ID card to open the turnstile in the lobby. "I wish they'd get an iOS-compatible security system like everyone else," he grumbles. Now outside his office door, he opens his ADT app on his iPhone and enters his password. The door unlocks. "First one here as usual."

Lying down on his office's chaise lounge, Jack grabs his iPad 4. After a few taps, the same brief he was reviewing nine hours ago on his iPad 3 at home appears. He flips to the next page and sees a new paragraph that makes him sigh. He switches off the iPad, gets up, and sits at his desk. He opens Microsoft Word on his Mac and opens the same document. It's on the same page. "Gotta love iCloud." He begins editing the problematic paragraph.

Still unhappy, Jack undoes his changes, summons the Messages app first introduced three years ago on that fateful February day, and sends a text message to his client's general counsel, Diane, who responds a few seconds later and transforms the text chat into a Facetime conference. "You're up early," she says. "Well, your brief is due tomorrow. Can you open it now?"

Thanks to his firm's iCloud-aware document management system, Diane opens the same document on her iPad. Having put down her iPhone, Jack sees the ceiling of her living room for a split second until her iPad automatically takes over and he sees her face again.

"You have a way with words, but this judge is old school," he says. "I think we should tone down this paragraph you added last night." Diane makes a few changes that Jack sees on his own screen in realtime. He likes Diane's changes, and cracks a smile thinking again about that Bowie song. "Just three years since law practice changed."

Neil J. Squillante is the publisher of TechnoLawyer.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Written by practicing lawyers who manage successful small firms and legal technology and practice management experts who have achieved rock star status, this newsletter provides practical advice on management, marketing, and technology issues in small law firms, as well as comprehensive legal product reviews with accompanying TechnoScore ratings. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on September 26, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

"What's happening?" That one little prompt on Twitter spurs thousands of tweets every single second. It has given way to country-defining revolutions, some of the biggest reporting scoops of our generation, and life-saving warnings of natural disasters.

But for busy professionals at small law firms like yours, that prompt prevents so many lawyers and other professionals from using Twitter, which has an onboarding problem. Onboarding refers the process of enabling new users to quickly benefit from a service. For example, when you signed up for SmallLaw, you knew you'd start receiving newsletters like today's issue.

Regarding Twitter, why would prospective clients want to know what you ate for breakfast? How could that possibly make you money? They don't. And it won't.

Leveraging Twitter by Curating Information

What many lawyers don't realize is that Twitter isn't for mundane updates on one's day-to-day life. It isn't for anything specific. Twitter provides you with a ball and a field. What and how you want to play is up to you.

For lawyers seeking an effective client development strategy through Twitter, acting as a curator of information and active intelligence agent is the best game to play.

Instead of starting by figuring out what to say, lawyers must instead begin by deciding to whom they should listen.

By drawing on information from a wealth of credible sources and monitoring keywords relevant to your practice (client names, articles, cases, and the like) and then passing the best content along through Twitter, you can effectively establish yourself as a knowledgeable source of information within your desired niche. Twitter's limit of 140 characters per tweet is a blessing because no one expects a detailed treatise when you link to an interesting resource (including your own blog posts and articles).

Every morning before work I spend almost the entirety of the 35-minute ferry ride from my home on Bainbridge Island across the Puget Sound to LexBlog's offices in Seattle perusing the content in my RSS newsreader — a collection of feeds from sources I find credible and keywords relevant to my expertise — and passing along 10 to 12 headlines and my own short comments by way of Twitter.

Not only do I learn by skimming the latest news, but my brand as a thought-leader in my niche is going through the roof — all because I spend a half hour every morning using Twitter. All of the following metrics have increased as a result of my tweets:

• Traffic to my blog.
• Comments on my blog.
• Speaking engagements.
• Calls from reporters.
• Calls from law firms asking me to speak.
• Employee morale and our ability to recruit talent.
• And most importantly, our bottom-line.

Why Twitter Works So Well

These 35 minutes probably produce a higher return on investment (ROI) than any of my other client development work. Why? How could something so basic and seemingly impersonal work for client development?

Pause and think about how people get their best clients not just in the legal profession but in almost every single field — relationships and word of mouth reputation.

I have over 11,600 people following me on Twitter. While this group includes clients and potential clients — lawyers other legal professionals (managing partners, CMOs, CKOs, CIOs) and marketing and communications professionals — it's also comprised of the individuals who influence them — conference coordinators, editors, publishers, reporters, and the like.

These folks have come to rely on me for news and commentary about client development for lawyers, online networking, social media, and other relevant subjects. I'm their trusted intelligence agent.

This is the type of audience a public relations professional craves. A tool that puts me in touch with my target audience on a daily basis? Previously impossible.

And as an added kicker I'm nurturing and making meaningful relationships with people I want to get to know. We're becoming friends with one other.

Whether you work in employment law, estate planning, intellectual property, personal injury, or any other practice area, Twitter can be an effective client development tool. I have watched numerous lawyers connect with clients, prospective clients, and their influencers on Twitter. Those who follow them on Twitter aren't simply reading and digesting the information the lawyers highlight — they're passing it along to friends, business associates, reporters, and association leaders all the while keeping the originating source in mind.

Start Small and Think Big

Start small. You are not going to gain 1,500 valuable followers overnight. Growing an audience interested in news related to your niche area of the law from 50 to 100 to 500 followers can take time.

That's okay. You're strengthening your brand as a reliable and trusted authority in your specialty and creating relationships with your target audience.

Call Twitter mindless babble and beneath lawyers if you like. Smart lawyers and law firms will ignore such short-sighted rhetoric and use Twitter as a high ROI relationship-building tool.

Written by Kevin O'Keefe is CEO and Publisher of LexBlog, the leading provider of social media solutions and strategies to law firms.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on September 6, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

I have a confession to make. Since covering the 2011 ABA TechShow for TechnoFeature, I've been wrestling with a vexing question …

Who the hell is Jay Shepherd and how will he earn a living?

Let me explain. On the eve of TechShow, a veritable Who's Who of legal pundits took the stage at Ignite Law 2011: Tom Mighell, Dennis Kennedy, Kevin O'Keefe, Carolyn Elefant, Marc Lauritsen, Jim Calloway, and of course Jay Shepherd. Wait a minute! Jay who?

Well whoever he was, he considered it appropriate to announce during his six minutes on stage that he would close his employment law practice to start Prefix, a consulting firm to help law firms abandon the billable hour.

My first thought was: Who cares? My next were: Too much imbibing at the cash bar? An attempt at free advertising? A cry for help? Still, I let go of the issue and chalked it up to a lawyer's ego (plenty of that to go around). So imagine my surprise when none other than the ABA Journal covered Jay's announcement.

Whoa. This guy's career move was national news? The whole episode got me wondering — why would anyone abandon a successful law practice to become a consultant? Not that it's unheard of. After all, a few years ago I did just that, only to be drawn back to the law once and for all.

While this SmallLaw column might arrive too late for Jay, let me explain to those of you still managing small law firms what will likely happen to Jay since I have traveled this path.

Commanding Attention Versus Begging for It …

Not long after I slipped the surly bonds of law practice in 2006 to live the jet-setting life of a legal practice consultant, I found out that lawyers don't think they need advice, and certainly won't pay for it.

Even free advice was of no interest to most lawyers. After all, if they had to change anything to make the advice work then it really wasn't "free" was it? Change is hard, new hardware and software costs money, and clients hire people, not technology. To the vast majority of lawyers, one good afternoon on the links and a vintage IBM PC (circa 1999) was more important than all the consulting in the world.

Of course, sometimes I would get a prospect to agree to a meeting. Inevitably however, I found myself talking to someone from IT with no grasp of the legal process, or explaining things to a partner who had already decided to cut out the middle man and have his teenage kids throw together a Facebook page. Ultimately, the process was more like selling encyclopedias than delivering professional services. And at no time did I feel as if I were selling "knowledge," a recurring theme in Jay Shepherd's promotional materials. On the contrary, I frequently had to beg for attention instead of command it, as I had when I was a lawyer.

Even if Jay manages to avoid such obstacles and get hired, how will his new business compare to his old business? We lawyers adhere to a simple principal — clients pay to cure pain, ward off fear, or have us deal with unpleasantness. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the law is utterly opaque, attorneys and courts have little patience for lay people, and the legislature and courts throttle competition from out-of-jurisdiction lawyers while keeping the barriers to entry high for recent law school graduates. All in all, you might say that clients have to hire us to get anything done.

By comparison, being a consultant is like playing Vegas. The field is clogged because any mope can call himself a consultant. Even when consultants get hired payment is still at the customer's mercy. Worst of all, consultants must span the credibility gap with prospects by selling themselves around the clock. That doesn't leave much time in which to sell knowledge — or help lawyers sell knowledge instead of hours.

Room for One More?

So, is there room for one more practice consultant in an unregulated field crowded with tireless self-promoters? After my experience a few years ago, I recommend that Jay keep one toe in the legal practice tide pool for now. And for all we know, that might be his game plan. When Jay also used his Above the Law column to announce his plans, one commenter sarcastically quipped that: "he said he was closing his law business, not necessarily quitting law practice. I expect that he will work out of his (mom's?) basement … as a solo practitioner doing legal work for several of his existing clients, but without having to carry the risks and costs of employees."

But practice consultants who try to wear both hats are often lousy lawyers. What's more, skills become dull surprisingly quickly, learning new tricks is never easy, and having the confidence of courts, colleagues, and clients is as important as making a good argument. Being a lawyer is as much about relationships as anything else, and those relationships rely on seeing and being seen by the right people every day.

What's a would-be consultant to do when he's too busy selling himself to be at the closing table, in the office, or in court? Does Jay understand what he's getting himself into?

Here's a lawyer about my age and experience level, with an established practice in a major metropolitan area, strong academic and peer credentials, several blogs and a popular column who experienced his share of wins and notoriety, and who by all accounts could have continued to practice.

Why the sudden zeal to fix our industry's broken billing model? Is it because he's a fellow at the Verasage Institute, an organization so inscrutable its name isn't even a real word? Or is it because the Institute taught him to "bury the billable hour and timesheets" as it boasts on its web site? Or is it because, as Jay writes in his biography on the Verasage web site, he is on a "mission to save the world from lawyers, and to save lawyers (and other professionals) from themselves"?

Or Has Jay Simply Painted Himself Into a Corner?

I guess what I'm saying is that Jay Shepherd might want to take a lesson from my experience, and not throw the baby out with the bathwater. He might also want to refrain from predicting the future at national events just in case things don't work out. And in the unlikely event that he's forced to take up law practice again, he might want to keep certain skills honed so he doesn't have to re-learn how to maintain credibility with his peers, acquire clients, try cases, hire good employees, and most importantly, fire bad ones.

I mean, look at me. As critical as I am of our profession and its broken systems, I still practice law and keep track of hours, expenses, and other business minutiae. Why? Because to paraphrase Churchill (and channel Tocqueville), the legal business is terrible … but consulting is far worse.

Written by Will County bankruptcy lawyer Mazyar M. Hedayat of M. Hedayat & Associates, P.C.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 30, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

With Hurricane Irene just recently having rumbled her way through my adopted home state of North Carolina — including making a mess of our beautiful Outer Banks and eastern regions — disaster preparedness (or business continuity to use a popular euphemism) is on my mind. Watching Irene's progression up the east coast and the trouble she wrought en route, I imagine it must be on some of your minds too.

When we talk about technology, we often engage in a facile and glib debate over operating systems, Angry Birds, and coolness. God knows, I'm a card-carrying member of that club — new and cool is my red meat as regular readers of my SmallLaw columns well know.

But in deference to all the law firms who are digging out from Irene, I want to use this issue of SmallLaw to address how to get your firm as ready as possible for the next Irene Mother Nature throws your way. Below you'll find my top five tips.

1. Go Paperless

The discussion over going paperless in a small law firm often centers on efficiency, collaboration, ethics and mobility, all of which are important facets of the decision.

However, it's not until you wake up one day, however, and your entire office suite is under six feet of water and your paper files have turned to pulp that paperless' importance as a disaster preparedness measure become clear.

Sure, you may only need offsite digital copies of everything once in a career — but the day you need it, you really need it. Offsite backup is a good start, but if only 25% of your key data is digital, you are still sunk when the high waters arrive.

2. Sever Your Servers With Hosted Communications

Floods and natural disasters are good reasons to consider embracing hosted communications — meaning both your email and your phone system. If your communication hubs run out of server boxes in your office and they're under water, they're useless. Sure, some backup strategies can help mitigate this porblem, but if I were running a small firm today, I'd get rid of all my servers — applications, email, documents, telephone — the whole shebang. With Hosted Exchange, Google Apps, and VoIP phone systems, it has never been easier.

3. Centralized Document and Practice Management

According to the ABA's 2011 Legal Technology Survey, the adoption rate of document and practice management software in small law offices remains dismal.

Anecdotally, in my work, I find that law firms regard this software as somewhere between an unnecessary expense and a "nice to have." Much like the decision to go paperless and host your communications, if you imagine having to run your firm the day after a disaster (with all of your employees working remotely from their homes), the decision to centralize document and practice management is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Frequency of need is not the same as degree. You only need an emergency room once in a while, too, but if you didn't have one nearby the day you needed it, you'd be in big trouble.

4. Laptops Over Desktops Plus Smartphones and iPads

I frequently talk with lawyers who debate whether to buy their staff laptop or desktop computers, citing that desktops are cheaper and more powerful. A disaster should convince you that mobility trumps the marginal cost savings and power of desktops.

Laptops have another advantage. When the power goes out, they continue running for a few hours. But even laptops have their limits. Smartphones (and 3G iPads) tend to have a much longer battery life, and can access the Internet via your carrier. Some smartphones can even serve as a mobile hotspot. Law firms have issued smartphones to their lawyers for many years. Some have begun to issue iPads as well.

5. Home Office Essentials

For your lawyers and staff to be productive working from home while your office is underwater, in addition to a laptop they will need an internet connection robust enough to run their VoIP phones, a headset with a microphone, a printer, and a scanner.

Whether you provide this equipment for your staff or require that they provide it for themselves is a matter of your compensation and training systems. Either way, if you want your staff to work rather than just watch Sports Center until your office reopens, they will need the tools to perform their work.

Conclusion

I hope you and your firm survived Hurricane Irene with nary a puddle. But I also hope this article prompts you to prepare for the unthinkable.

Written by Erik Mazzone of Law Practice Matters.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 23, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

2011 dropped a bomb on me. This year just plain stinks. It has tested my solo practice, my confidence, even my faith. On May 21st, my mother suffered a massive stroke. According to some interpretations of the Bible, the Rapture was supposed to occur on May 21, 2011. My father had planned to play a joke on my mother by piling up his clothes in the living room and hiding in a closet. Deciding against it, he went to let Mom in on the joke. She didn't laugh. She was too nauseous, and couldn't see or stand. After a 120 MPH drive to UAB Hospital, I was fortunate enough to see her smile one last time. She remained in a vegetative state for two more months before passing away on her 68th birthday.

My father, brother (also a lawyer), and I, with the help of my wonderful wife, sat by Mom's side day and night. I continued to work on existing cases, and decline new clients. To make matters worse it was the summer time — when the court system all but shuts down. I would have lost my business, let alone my mind, if not for virtual services.

We all read about virtual law firms and the virtual services they use such as receptionists, typists, and remote control applications. However, this summer I learned that these services provide an important safety net even in a traditional law practice like mine with office space. In this issue of SmallLaw, I'll tell you about three virtual services that literally saved my law firm.

You Can't Avoid the Phone Forever

After word got out that I was having a hard time, a friend relayed my troubles to Jill Nelson, the the top dog at Ruby Receptionists, a virtual receptionist service in Oregon gaining momentum among lawyers. Sympathetic to my plight, Ruby offered to answer my phones until I got back on my feet. A few email messages later I had a system in place. A warm, professional group of receptionists greeted callers, knew what to ask, and knew the people with whom I needed to talk. With Ruby I was able to concentrate on simply surviving the loss of a parent, instead of playing phone tag.

Making the benefits of Ruby even more obvious is my ability to review all calls from my iPhone via the Ruby Receptionist app. It displays who called, lets you know if they left a message (transcribed by the Ruby staff) or a voicemail, and enables you to create a new contact entry. Even cooler is the app's ability to notify Ruby of my whereabouts so that my phone doesn't ring during hearings. I can even message Ruby from the app to give them special instructions such as returning a call to a client for me.

You Can't Think of Everything

While sitting helpless in the hospital, I tried to get some work done. While I could accomplish more than I thought possible with my iPad (read my previous SmallLaw column, Using the iPad 2 in the Field in a Wrongful Death Case), there were times when I needed to access my desktop computer.

For example, the day I had to make a mad rush back from the hospital to the courthouse for a hearing I had forgotten a document I needed to present to the court in hardcopy form. Its residing in my Dropbox account was of little use since I couldn't print reliably from the iPad. I spent the hour drive to my hometown tracking down buddies who could print the document for me.

How much simpler it would have been to have a remote desktop server in place! Enter iTeleport for iPad, which I now have thanks to the efforts of TechnoLawyer. Now when I'm out of the office and need access to my desktop it's only a click away. iTeleport leverages the iPad's beautiful touchscreen to recreate my desktop computer. It perfectly implements the touch controls so that I can print documents, run non-iOS programs like Microsoft Word, and even stream music and movies from the office to my mobile location.

You Won't Have Time to Type

On another occasion, I again found myself in my least favorite place — under the gun. I had a brief due that couldn't be put off any longer without detriment to my client, so there I was resembling a trained bear on a motorcycle in a hospital waiting room pecking away at the iPad's virtual keyboard (sometimes virtual is not a virtue). This document needed some serious appellate formatting that made blood drip from my ears. If I'd only had somebody to type it for me.

Now that I'm enjoying 20/20 hindsight, I've started using LegalTypist. Unlike a virtual paralegal, which I suspect would be overkill for most of us, LegalTypist is simply that — an administrative assistant who optimizes your workflow. I can email a recorded dictation file or just dictate using a telephone. Within 24 hours, I received the document formatted properly for my jurisdiction. The best thing is I don't have to train anybody, implement weird proprietary software, or have a monthly contract for services I don't use often. The company is just there when I need them without a commitment to justify when bookkeeping.

The Bottom Line on Preserving Your Bottom Line: Plan Ahead

Life is unkind to everyone at times. However, a large law firm can keep rolling along if one of its lawyers becomes unavailable. Small law firms — solo practices in particular — don't have a deep bench or any bench at all. My mother's death crippled me emotionally and nearly crippled my law practice too. Had I known then what I know now I could have had services like Ruby, iTeleport, and LegalTypist in place to ease my stress during my time of need. These services are more affordable than ever, even on a rookie solo's nonexistent budget. You'll never be fully prepared for the unthinkable. Fires, natural disasters, and even death are very real threats to our legal careers. Plan ahead SmallLaw subscribers, plan ahead.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on August 16, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Sitting in the audience at the Legal Marketing Association annual conference this spring, I heard an "Internet marketing expert" advise that blogs were only for lawyers who had a lot of time on their hands.

She warned that publishing a blog requires posting three or four times a week, constant moderating of comments, and thinking of original stories and updates to cover. She's wrong.

Quality, Not Quantity

If blogging were that hard, I would never started publishing a blog eight years ago.

Can you publish a law blog that enhances your reputation, grows your network, establishes you as a domain expert, and brings in not just clients, but quality clients, without it consuming all of your time? Yes.

Seattle lawyer Dan Harris of Harris & Moure publishes the China Law Blog, one of the more influential law blogs.

He spends 15 to 45 minutes to write a blog post with 25 minutes being the average. Harris characterizes his blog as very successful in generating new business.

Quality over content is key. About one-half of the law blogs on our LexBlog Network are updated once per week. About 75% are updated once every two weeks. That's a far cry from 3-4 times per week.

Those who don't talk all the time command attention when they do talk if they have something interesting to say. That's especially true for law blogs focused on a niche area of the law or geographic region.

The Share-and-Comment Blog Post

Like this and other columns in SmallLaw, blog posts should be short and cover only one point. Actually, shorter — 200 to 500 words is sufficient.

Think of blogging as sharing what you read. Blogging to share not only takes less time, but also works much better for business development. With your blog, you can create and participate in a rich, ongoing conversation regarding matters relevant to your area of practice and the industries or consumer groups you represent.

Here's how it works:

1. Follow what is being written in relevant blogs and news stories. Use Google News and Google Blog Search to track key words and key phrases germane to your practice areas. You can subscribe to these searches via email or with Google Reader.

2. Share a story or blog post you find interesting and which you believe prospective clients and others who read your blog would find of interest as well. Offer your insight and commentary.

Think of it as clipping out an article, highlighting a paragraph, and dropping a note to a client as to why you thought the story would be of interest to them. But don't just say, "I saw this, here's the link." Instead:

• Link to the source material. For example, linking the title of the article on which you're commenting will create a consistent style across your blog. If you prefer, link keywords that describe the article.

• Link to the author or reporter's LinkedIn profile or Web site bio. They'll notice and appreciate the link.

• Share a fair use block quote or two that brings home the salient points you want to share.

• Offer your insight in a paragraph or two.

For example:

John Schwartz, the National Legal Correspondent for the New York Times, wrote an interesting story last week, Florida: Drug Laws Ruled Unconstitutional.

Judge Scriven's 43-page opinion is noteworthy for the following reasons.…

The Advantages of This Style of Blogging

Sharing and commenting on articles:

• Demonstrates to your clients, prospective clients, referral sources, industry leaders, bloggers, and reporters that you stay up to speed in your niche. You see things your competitors are not following or at least not blogging about.

• Enables you to learn about developments in the law as well as the industries and groups you serve.

• Engages the influencers and amplifiers — the 5% of people who influence 95%. You need to engage and build relationships with bloggers, reporters, association leaders and conference coordinators who your clients, prospective clients, and referral sources follow. Do this and you will be cited and quoted by influential bloggers and reporters. You will be speaking at conferences led by the association leaders you've engaged.

• Creates a strong online identity and reputation for you. The most important Google search for you, as a good lawyer, is not one based what you do and where you are located (e.g., Seattle real estate lawyer). Instead, the most important search is on your name. People turn to a trusted source for the name of lawyer. They'll then Google the lawyer's name. A search returning citations of what you have blogged, reporters quoting you, conferences where you have spoken, and people sharing your blog posts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook beats the heck out of results returning just your Web site and LinkedIn bio.

Don't Let Any "Experts" Dissuade You From Blogging

You can publish a law blog that enhances your reputation, grows your network, establishes you as a domain expert, and brings in quality clients without it consuming your life. Think quality over quantity, brevity, listening to relevant conversations, and sharing your insight and commentary.

Written by Kevin O'Keefe, CEO and Publisher of LexBlog, the leading provider of social media solutions and strategies to law firms.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on July 26, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

"Bookmarks are dead."

That's what an MIT-educated, super-nerd friend of mine told me several years ago as I complained about my unhappiness with my browser-based bookmarking system. (A complaint that may owe more to my inherent disorganization than to major deficiencies in browser technology it should be noted.)

"In a world where Google puts everything on the Web a quick search away, why bookmark anything?" my geek-guru asked rhetorically. I thought about that for a while. The logic made sense, but the conclusion didn't work for me.

I research on the Web the way I used to conduct legal research (aimlessly and incompletely, if my 1L legal research professor was to be believed). I roam freely and gather things as I go before I've decided on a connection or categorization for the item, so it is entirely possible I may never cross paths with the site again.

I decided that search only replaces bookmarks if you consistently reuse the same or very similar terms on each search. Maybe that works for those MIT computer brains, but it assuredly doesn't work for me.

Over the years I have tried a variety of improved bookmarking tools with varying degrees of success. In this issue of SmallLaw I discuss my top five.

The Uber-Notebooks: Evernote and Springpad

By now, you have probably heard of (and maybe use) Evernote, the online digital notebook. Evernote can do a lot of things, but one of the most underappreciated is that it's an excellent bookmarking service. With its terrific Web clipper extension for Chrome and Firefox, saving Web pages to Evernote is a snap. Not only do you get a bookmark with a link to the page, you also get the page itself.

Springpad is similar to Evernote, and it must be said, equally excellent. It also functions superbly as a bookmark tool (superior to Evernote in my estimation). I stick with Evernote largely because it hooks into everything I use, from my Fujitsu ScanSnap to my iPhone and inertia makes it hard to leave. If I were choosing between the two today, though, it would be tough call.

The Social Bookmark: Pinboard and Delicious

Social bookmarking sites Pinboard and Delicious offer another alternative to the traditional browser-based bookmarks. They function as a cloud-based service on which you save your bookmarks to a Web site that you log into from anywhere.

These services offer the usual cloud technology benefits of easy accessibility across a range of devices and reduced worry about hardware failures, as well as the usual cloud technology concern of privacy. Both Pinboard and Delicious offer tagging, notes fields and the ability to make a bookmark private. All in all, they are comparable services. Pinboard costs about $10 though, while Delicious is free.

Free was not enough to keep me using Delicious, however. I was a devoted Delicious user for years but switched to Pinboard when it looked like Yahoo (the former owner of Delicious) might shut the service down. Fearful of losing my bookmarks, I forked over the $10. Now that Delicious has been acquired, it again looks enticing, but I've been happy with Pinboard.

The Browser-Based Bookmark 2.0: Xmarks

Despite all of these options, there are still a few bookmarks that I like to keep in my browser (mostly because I use them all day long and that is the quickest way to access them). If you prefer to keep your bookmarks there as well, take a look at a service like Xmarks.

Xmarks will sync your bookmarks (via browser extension) across multiple machines as well as store a backup set of your bookmarks to prevent loss. Your bookmarks stay right in the folders you are used to in your browser, but are securely backed up and synced. It's a functionality that is increasingly being baked in to browser technology (Firefox for example), but for now I still think Xmarks offers a valuable service.

Conclusion

Check out these bookmarking options to see if any work for you. Maybe you'll conclude as I do, that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the demise of bookmarks have been greatly exaggerated.

Written by Erik Mazzone of Law Practice Matters.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on July 12, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

Who's on your list? You know which list I mean.

Deep within the folds and confines of your LinkedIn connections or Outlook contacts or Facebook friends or wherever exists the hub of all your business relationships, there is a small and very exclusive group — the people whose support and friendship has made the difference between success and failure for you.

Maybe you call them referral sources or key clients or just friends. What you call them and where you store them is less important than that they exist in the first place. I'm going to refer to them as VIPs for the sake of brevity.

Over the years, first as a practicing lawyer and later as a practice management advisor, I've heard many lawyers and marketing gurus refer to the need to compile a core group of 10, 15, or 20 people who comprise a professional's list of VIPs — the folks who help you build your practice and make your business world go round.

Top of Mind

It's not enough to build this group of VIPs though. You need to maintain contact with these heavy hitters — enough so you always remain top of mind when they need your skills, but not so much that you annoy them. Remembering enough detail about their lives that you demonstrate sincere interest, but not so much that you become creepy. (It's a fine line — remembering their kids' birthdays is okay, but remembering their spouse's yoga schedule is creepy.)

But with all the effluvia and ephemera that pass through the transoms of our minds and Facebook walls, there's not as much gray matter to remember the important stuff as we would hope.

CRM to the Rescue

CRM or client relationship management (companies outside the legal sector use the word "customer" instead) software can help. Long the province of salespeople, CRM software helps you manage your VIPs by enabling you to stay in regular touch with them, and reminding you of the important details of your relationship with them. It does this by:

1. Serving as the repository for all key information about your VIPs.

2. Reminding you when you interacted last with a VIP and what you talked about.

3. Prompting you to follow up with them in the timeframe you choose.

I realize this publication is called SmallLaw and not Selling Power, but don't let the sales origins of CRM software get you wrapped around the axle. When I was in college, I worked as a file clerk for a sole practitioner in a little hippie town in upstate New York. His "CRM" system consisted of a bunch of stuff typed on index cards. I know because I filed the cards.

Some CRM Options

When you start thinking about using CRM in your practice, it's important to recall that the end goal is strong relationships with your group of VIPs. Don't miss the forest for the trees, and become consumed by finding the CRM software with the most widgets, doodads, and gizmos. Find the product that best helps you connect with your VIPs.

Here's a test — if you are spending more time curating your VIP details in your CRM program than you are having lunch with your VIPs, you're on the wrong track.

As I've mentioned in previous SmallLaw columns, I'm a bit of techno-gadfly — and my experiments with CRM are no exception. I've tried 800 pound gorilla Salesforce (which TechnoLawyer uses), some more streamlined options that I liked (Highrise and BatchBook), and one or two forgettable options that ride on top of Outlook.

I can heartily recommend all three of the options I just listed. If you are in the market for CRM, they are each worth a look and all have free trials. The truth is, though, I don't use any of them. I found my personal CRM nirvana someplace else.

Back to the Inbox With Xobni

Covered several times in TechnoLawyer NewsWire, Xobni is a well-known Outlook add-on that helps users draw more functionality out of their email programs. I tried it years ago and was not terribly impressed — I don't keep enough email in Outlook for it to be particularly helpful so I cast it on the scrap heap of my discarded tech toys (if you use Outlook, check out that version).

Recently though, Xobni released Xobni for Gmail (currently in beta), which has provided the answer to my CRM needs. It pulls from all my contacts in Gmail, as well as their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter information. It provides a graphical "relationship summary" of the frequency of our email exchanges and topics, including other people commonly included in our exchanges. And because in Gmail I keep all of my old messages, it draws on an unbelievably extensive history of information with each contact.

Best of all, though, it does all of this (courtesy of a Google Chrome extension) right in my Gmail inbox automatically without my needing to go to some other place to interact with it. It richly contextualizes my email exchanges when I need it and gets out of the way when I don't.

Xobni for Gmail does not have a task component built in, but that works for me anyway. I'm a bit of a Getting Things Done nerd (GTD — another three-letter acronym for a future SmallLaw column) so I use other tools for my task list.

Experiment for Yourself

Don't take my word for it. Try Xobni for Gmail or Outlook, Salesforce, Highrise, and Batchbook for yourself. See if one of them helps you keep track of your VIPs. They're your VIPs, after all. Shouldn't you treat them like that acronym?

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.

Originally published on June 28, 2011 in our free SmallLaw newsletter. Instead of reading SmallLaw here after the fact, sign up now to receive future issues in realtime.

You've got a problem. A big problem. Literally. Large law firms differ from small law firms in one important way — money. They've got it. We don't. They can invest hundreds of thousands into ad campaigns. How nice. For those of us in the trenches, taking grenades from every high school booster ad campaign or restaurant menu designer, advertising is a little less glamorous. Sure we'd love a billboard on every corner and a thirty second spot during primetime, but the Benjamins just ain't there! So what's a small fish to do in a big pond? Quit looking at our small size as a weakness, and recognize our strengths instead! Here's how.

Use Your Non-Billable Time Productively

One area where the lack of size matters is overhead. A small firm could run indefinitely on a large firm's monthly operating budget. Large firms are particularly vulnerable here as they've grown so accustomed to branding campaigns, gourmet cafeterias, and other such amenities for so long that they can't imagine practicing without them. They should at least cut the crappachino machine. But they won't. Their loss, your gain.

Time is on our side. While silent phones are disheartening, realize that because the large firm across town is responding to client emergencies around the clock they don't have time to learn new tricks like how to optimize their Web site for Google, or how to institute a paperless office. They'll just pay the next SEO shark lying in wait for a sucker to swim by — and not get much value for the big bucks they spend.

With your down time, you've made your way through Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie Stricchiola's The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization and learned about backlinks, content management systems, keyword-laden URLs, title tags, and more. With the money you saved by going paperless you now have enough scratch to get your Web site up and running. While the large firm lawyer across town just spilled his non-soy low-fat double-caramel latte on his monogrammed custom shirt while reviewing his slam-dunk marketing bill, you just took first place for "Seattle personal injury lawyer" on Google ninja style!

How Technology Created a New Frontier for Small Firms

Technology enabled small law firms to evolve from the primordial soup of big city boutique and small town general practice firms into the next big thing in our industry — more variety than even Darwin could imagine, including virtual practices. (Our ailing economy and the abysmal job prospects for law school graduates have also helped usher in this new era.)

Ten years ago the sole practitioner was revered as a sad little being that either couldn't play nice with the other children or didn't have the grades to get a job in a boutique or large firm. Back then if you wanted to go solo it helped to have a rich relative, preferably deceased. It took money. In my dad's day an electric typewriter was high-tech and the price tag reflected it. A small firm had to weigh the benefits of technology versus its cost.

Today, cost and technology rarely come at odds (except perhaps for those just out of law school). The new cost-benefit analysis focuses on technology versus productivity with a little cost sprinkled on top. For example, if you want to go paperless, buy a scanner for $450ish. Couple your new scanner with Dropbox, or any of the other myriad cloud services, and you've just gone paperless. Now a box of paper will last months rather than days. You will consume ink or toner only for printing court exhibits. Your filing cabinets hit eBay, and you stop sending a monthly check to that offsite storage provider.

Technology also empowers your marketing as intimated above. Before the advent of WordPress you had to understand Web development code such as ASP.Net or PHP if you wanted to create and maintain more than a brochure site. It was tough to learn and expensive to outsource. We were at the mercy of Web designers.

But now that you can register a domain for $10 per year, find great hosting options for under $100 per year, and run WordPress using a professionally-designed theme (I use Headway Themes) to make your site pop, you've got no excuse whatsoever to ignore the trend in our profession.

And what is that trend? That potential clients use Google for everything. Studies show that most folks will search for something before they ask the person sitting next to them. These people are searching for doctors, electricians, and yes even lawyers. And they're looking for answers, not your curriculum vitae. Lawyers publishing articles answering these questions are killing their competition.

What's in My Small Firm Toolbox?

I run a paperless office with a scanner and Dropbox. I ditched the fax machine in favor of an online fax-to-email service. $10 a month. I run www.clarkstewartlaw.com using WordPress (free) hosted by Bluehost ($80/year) so I don't have to learn code.

As I discussed extensively in my last SmallLaw column, I use an iPad 2 to remain paperless while in court and for many other mobile tasks. I use Fastcase (free on iPad or iPhone) for legal research, and Google Calendar and Gmail. And thanks to a very gracious offer during a current family hardship I'm having my calls answered by a virtual receptionist via Ruby Receptionist to lighten my load.

I learned how to do all this by reading SmallLaw and TechnoLawyer's other newsletters (I was a fan before I became a columnist) as well legal blogs like iPhone J.D. and Legal Practice Pro. I joined every legal email listserver I could find such as the ABA's Solosez. I also joined my state's criminal defense lawyers group. I now have access to legal marketing, mentoring, and beneficial technology for nothing more than my time!

In short, if you are willing to learn, technology can elevate your practice, enabling you to offer incredible value, once only available from large firms, to your clients at a fraction of the cost, thus beating the big boys at their own game. When that large firm across town shuts its doors, you can buy its crappachino machine at a discount.

How to Receive SmallLaw
Small firm, big dreams. Published first via email newsletter and later here on our blog, SmallLaw provides you with a mix of practical advice that you can use today, and insight about what it will take for small law firms like yours to thrive in the future. The SmallLaw newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.