Featured Articles
Anatomy of an Effective Legal Bill
One of the top struggles for solo and small firm lawyers is getting paid.You’ve performed the work for your client and you did a good job – getting paid for your time and effort seems like it would be a slam dunk. But unfortunately, that’s not always the case. The…
How to Really Hold People Accountable
The topic of “accountability” anchors almost every leadership discussion I witness these days. While I hear the word accountability ad nauseum, what I see are leaders who lack the intestinal fortitude to follow through on the actions that create it. How to hold people accountable Here are the things you’re…
HOW TO JUMPSTART CHANGE
When you ask someone, “How’s it going?” Most people say “okay, getting by, managing alright.” It seems as though for most of us, there is so much to juggle that we hardly have time to think about developing a career and life experience that would have us shouting out an…
CLIENT EXPERIENCE (CX) PART 1 – IS IT DIFFERENT FROM CLIENT SERVICE?
Providing exceptional and consistent client service is critical to your firm’s success, but to be a real winner, you will have to deliver an exceptional client experience (CX). With clients now in the driver’s seat and law firms aggressively competing to hold on to clients or take work away from…
Web-Based Client Portals: The Benefits to Lawyers
In the first post in this series, attorney and MyCase Director Nicole Black introduced the concept of law practice management software platforms with built-in client portals. In part two, she outlines the many benefits that web-based client portals offer lawyers. Client portals are incredibly valuable tools for law firms because they allow lawyers to…
Fun and easy team building ideas
Everyone has a preference or comfort zone when it comes to working as part of a team. Some people desire and thrive in collaborative settings, while others dread collective decision making and would prefer to work alone. However you feel about working as part of a team, the reality is…
Focus on Law Firms: Managing Law Firm Fraud Risks - An Internal Control Checklist
Although the majority of employees are honest, a trusted employee will steal when three elements exist: pressure, opportunity and rationalization. Pressurearises when an employee is faced with a significant financial problem that he/she may feel unable to discuss with, or seek help from, others. Opportunityis present when the employee believes…
What’s Killing Efficiency in Your Law Firm?
I recently came across an interesting article, published in Attorney at Work, that discusses five key areas that are potentially killing efficiency in today’s legal firms. http://bit.ly/1X80nYz These five common efficiency killers include: Staffing and task assignment errors Manual billing Clinging to paper Tethering work to the office technology Settling for…
Fun and easy team building ideas
Everyone has a preference or comfort zone when it comes to working as part of a team. Some people desire and thrive in collaborative settings, while others dread collective decision making and would prefer to work alone. However you feel about working as part of a team, the reality is…
Improving your firm’s productivity ratio - leverage systems and staff
After working with legal firms for 25 years, as a consultant and accountant*, I focus on one simple formula to consistently and effectively measure a firm’s efficiency – the productivity ratio. The ratio measures the number of support staff to fee earners. For example a 1:1 ratio will have 1…
