Solo In Chicago…Grow Your Practice!

Here’s a great overview from ABA’s Law Practice Today regarding marketing your practice with a Weblog.

Here’s a good piece from Law.com’s Small Firm Business. Here’s a good quote:

However, we also live in a culture of fear. Fear we won’t meet our student loans, fear we won’t be able to pay our living expenses, fear we won’t have clients, fear we won’t know what we are doing, fear of not having a steady paycheck and health insurance and so on. And then there is fear of what others will think if we try to go out there and make a go of it. We absorb all that fear to our detriment. And in turn, we sell ourselves to anyone who will hire us rather than trust ourselves. We sell out because of fear and, usually, too cheaply. I say, “No deal.”

Remember, 74% of U.S. lawyers are in firms with four lawyers or less. Small firm life is the typical lawyers’ life…even when you are in Chicago’s Loop!

Here’s an informative posting from the [non] billable hour regarding various age groups’ online habits.

According to this study:

Gen Yers spend 12.2 hours online every week — 28 percent longer than 27- to 40-year-old Gen Xers and almost twice as long as 51- to 61-year-old Older Boomers. Gen Yers are also much more likely to engage in Social Computing activities while online. For example, they are 50 percent more likely than Gen Xers to send instant messages, twice as likely to read blogs, and three times as likely to use social networking sites like MySpace. “All generations adopt devices and Internet technologies, but younger consumers are Net natives who spend more time online than watching television,” said Forrester Research Vice President and co-author of the report Ted Schadler. “Younger generations live online, reading blogs, downloading podcasts, checking prices before buying, and trading recommendations.”

You better believe that if you’re targeting young adults that you need to be a part of online referrals services and an active blogger. I know in our practice, the referrals we get from the blogsphere have focused on young home buyers and young adults with family law problems.

Here’s a helpful piece from today’s Times entitled, Entrepreneurs Take Time to Manage their Time. That’s what us smallish law firm lawyers are right? So we’re not only entrepreneurs who need to manage our time well but we’re also in the business of selling time so time management is doubly important.

Here’s a great quote from Attorney Diedre Wachbrit, a California lawyer:

But she said it was important to resist the temptation to take two minutes to do something and instead to “take five minutes to think how someone else can do it, because that will save me hours if you think about how often I do that same task over and over again.”

I couldn’t guess how many times I make that mistake.

Another good quote that I’m guilty of:

“I was a firefighter. All I did was put out fires. I never prevented fires from occurring, as I do now. I did not get any business growth or development accomplished.”

Are you a firefighter??

As some of you may know, I’m a graduate of The Southern Illinois University School of Law. I’m a big supporter of what they’re doing down there and it’s a very underrated and yet economical law school.

So all of us Saluki’s are just waiting for the day when our fellow graduate and now-lawyer, Matthew Hale just drops off the radar screen…is that day ever going to come? Here’s his latest antic, a $30 million malpractice suit versus his former defense attorney, Thomas Durkin of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw.

From afar it’s sort of sick and humorous to see him flail away within the justice system. But speaking with my managing shareholder of a law firm hat on, why would anyone have gotten into this case representing him? Wasn’t both the loss and likely this malpractice suit almost inevitable? Are some of these larger law firm’s financially secure enough whereby the monetary threat really doesn’t matter and essentially they’ll risk it for the publicity? From where I’m sitting it’s a lapse in judgment and one wonders the rigors with which Mayer, Brown selects whom it will represent.

There’s a very interesting profile of Attorney Ron Miller from Miller, Shakman & Beem in the August Chicago Lawyer. He’s nearing 75 and was sort of looking for a challenge and how to reinvent himself. So he started this monthly luncheon group called The Public Affairs Round Table where he’ll bring together different “players.” Once a month or so, he invites some 40 or so people to sit down at the firm’s conference room to start a discussion about public affairs…whatever sparks his interest.

He has a nice quote in the articles that I think is true and applicable to blogging: “I never know what’s going to work and what’s not going to work. When something works it’s usually a suprise. I never know what’s going to bite, so I keep in circulation.”

I’d like for the blog and things beyond the blog to have a bit of this “Round Table” effect.

Here’s a nice piece from ABA’s Law Practice Today that discusses how lawyers should “partner-up” with bankers. It has three nice sections on cash flow management, bank loans, and handling credit card payments. It’s some of that good financial information that too many of us lawyers ignore.

There was a nice piece in Lawyers Weekly (article’s not on the cite) by Nancy B. Jones regarding hidden malpractice within law firms. She discusses a number of points beyond the obvious things like missed deadlines, conflicts of interest, poor client relations, ect.

Some highlights:

1. Sloppy leadership. Are lawyers bad at leadership? Or, is it simply a time issue. I remember a law school professor who’d always say how bad of managers lawyers are. See I think I’m personally a good leader (unbiased too), but I think this point is generally right on from my previous firm experience.

2. Ineffective daily management. She mentions that many law firms fail to even fill the role of legal administrator. We don’t have that role at our firm. She sees this person as a non-lawyer with authority who is in charge of day-to-day management.

3. Greed. Are you carrying TOO MANY cases?

4. A firm in name only. Do you share the costs and liabilities of partners, but otherwise operate as individual practices that just happen to be under the same roof? I see this one a lot.

5. No accountability. What does this mean in your firm? Are there clear job descriptions for each position?

6. Poorly balanced lives.

As a family law practitioner I was suprised to see a $500,000 verdict awarded to a woman based on the tort of alienation of affection in Greensboro, North Carolina. Here’s the Greensboro News-Record’s take on the case.

Pretty smart defendant who was not represented and didn’t show up for court at any of the proceedings.

We still have this tort in Illinois and I’ve looked into it on behalf of clients. I know there was a suit within the last five years involving Olive Garden restaurant as a defendant. As an admitted “family values” guy, I support this tort and making dissolution of marriage a little more difficult than it is frankly.