Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

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Some good biz/legal nuggets that I’ve been reading around the Web…

The Price of Bad Pricing. Really a fine analysis of this critical topic that’s often ignored. From the piece:

Pricing is as important as any business decision, but frequently it is treated as if it were no decision at all. Business owners just keep doing whatever they have always done, for better or worse. They do this because they fear they will — as they’ve been told a thousand times — price themselves out of the market.

No one ever warns them not to underprice themselves out of business. But I think that happens far more often.

Owning the Practice:  Getting the most out of your day. Great column with helpful productivity tips from my friend Tanya Witt’s column in Chicago Lawyer magazine. Good tips…naps/midday exercise can be very effective. Here was our take on a similar topic.  I know Winston Churchill was a big nap guy.

Effectiveness of business cards for lawyers. Another take from Illinois Lawyer NOW on the evolution of these little rectangular pieces of cardboard. Lawyerist posted on the subject recently here. I know my box of business cards is getting empty and it’s time to consider what’s next.

Tip: Rethink (outside the box) what your business card can do for you. Because it isn’t as necessary for contact information, use it to convey your brand, your image, your firm or practice “theme.” Consider more graphical or iconic representations or other ways to leave an impression, not just information. Also, think about multiple business cards for different uses – maybe one for contact info, one for specific practice areas.

And another take on a topic near and dear to my hear, Virtually Anywhere:  How I Created a Virtual Law Office that Works.

Here’s an interesting piece about a gentleman being charged with impersonating an attorney. This line made me cringe/chuckle a bit:

Martinez said she was victimized too, paying Gardner $4,000 to represent her husband in a Will County case. She said Gardner always told her husband to go to court alone and report back. A judge eventually entered a ruling against her husband after Gardner’s repeated absences, she said.

I receive these Illinois Supreme Court Rule updates via e-mail and was a tad intrigued by this amended Rule 58 when I got it yesterday. And it got a lot of coverage today so I thought I’d take a closer look. From the Court’s press release:

• The Illinois Supreme Court has announced the implementation of a mandatory judicial evaluation program for all Circuit and Associate judges in the state as the final part of a series of initiatives to improve public confidence in Illinois courts…
  
• The results will be confidential, shared only between the judge and a facilitator, also a judge or retired judge who has been specifically trained in the process.

My initial reaction was two-fold:  First, what about the whole appellate level, and, second, how ’bout some public disclosure? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait for a leak. But it seems like a step in the right direction. I wonder if the previous voluntary evaluation program had been utilized at all. Here & here is other media coverage.

The phone ain’t ringin’…it’s Christmas Eve! So I decided to skim some articles I’d been wanting to get around to reading…the highlights:

1. Some news for those of you on the front lines of lawyering in the Circuit Court of Cook County. First, here’s the piece announcing the creation of a new domestic violence division within the Court.  My understanding is this will primarily impact the life of judges (and less that of me as private lawyer) over at 555 W. Harrison since previously the judges over there had been split between the criminal and domestic relations divisions.  As a citizen of Cook County I was a tad saddened to see this proposal regarding the closure of 4 suburban courthouses over the weekend to save $$$. Am I missing something or isn’t there an obvious compromise to close a couple versus the only choices being close 4 or none?

2. The Double-Edged Sword of Suing a Client. A nice analysis from our friend Ed Poll with an analytical process to undertake before suing a client…first, there’s the loss of future business/referrals; second, possible negative publicity; third, possible negative press/perception. Remember regarding these sorts of matters, client communication is key. And I must say I’ve frowned a bit of late on using collection agencies who can be as much of a pain in the butt for creditor or for debtor.

3. One Lawyer’s Definitive Guide to Video Marketing for Lawyers. It’s hard to think of reasons NOT to do this as any cost barriers to entering the camcorder/video market have virtually disappeared. I’m going to make a big push here in 2010.

4. How to Market Your Business with Facebook. Well, since I only use FB to criticize Notre Dame football, converse about golf, and for the occasional political rank this blog ain’t the place to learn about FB marketing. But I WILL have a Facebook Page up shortly! As a non-expert on all things “social networking” it sure seems like FB and Twitter are where the buzz is. A separate link on 21 small to mid-sized Chicago businesses using social media effectively.

5. Total Attorneys:  For-Profit Lawyer Referrals? I honestly had never heard of Total Attorneys until the Tribune ran this piece a couple weeks back (it is a Chicago-based company). It doesn’t sound that different than LegalMatch that I used a couple years back although the article makes it sound like Total Attorneys directs the prospect to a single lawyer whereas LegalMatch merely allowed me as one of 5-10 lawyers respond to a prospect’s fact pattern. Far from being a legal ethics expert, I would only ask why it’s okay for bar associations to have referral services but not private, for-profit companies? SOME of the bar referral services are fairly lame w/o that profit motive.

6. Far From Field, Lawyer’s Blog a Player in N.F.L. A little off topic but I liked this piece because I am more jock than lawyer & it does emphasize a point that I and likely many lawyers should open their eyes to which is something to the effect that social media – Internet business likely has much better business potential than merely providing traditional, bricks/mortar legal services. Florio, 44, an erstwhile Vikings fan living in Steelers country, began his blog in 2001 as a sideline to his law practice. Is 2010 the year your blog income exceeds your lawyer income?

7. And to close with some “light” reading…a primer on international child abduction. Because if you’re a domestic relations lawyer like yours truly one of these IS going to walk into the office sometime…likely sooner rather than later. It’s got something to do with the Hague Convention, no?

Some nuggets I e-mailed to myself and finally got around to reading…

So You Want to Go Solo? You Sure? I was underwhelmed by this piece from the November ABA Journal…with the title I thought this would be useful and it’s not a short article. Several note-worthy persons are quoted in the article but perhaps the author didn’t ask the right questions or something. The best take-a-way:  “Like it or not, having a viable solo practice requires sales skills as much as legal skills.”

10 Ways to Conquer Your Procrastination. I struggle with this, not sure if it’s this general “procrastination” or just a malaise related to not enjoying the work that sits before me enough. The 2 best tips:  Embrace Discipline and Set a Big Goal.

Facebook a friend to small businesses. This includes some great tips and frankly it’s an area I’m deficient in. We’ve had an SIC group on Facebook for a while but it’s misguided…clearly a fan page is the way to go. Here’s good lawyer fan page usage. And our friend Ed Poll is profiled in the piece.

Real-Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords. Because one of these days I’m going to finally test these out & because I hear a lot of stories of ineffective usage.