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The Main Event: Three Important Calendar Management Tips for Lawyers

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Most attorneys should probably be ruled by their calendars, with law practices running on deadlines.  That’s especially true for litigation firms, which take direction from court rules and judges about when and how things get done.  Of course, the problem with just taking a final deadline, and dropping that onto the calendar ( like: attend a hearing, send a document), is that you’re usually left just triaging everything , at the very last minute.  And, nobody wants that mental anguish, when you end up breaking out in a cold sweat, getting ready to battle against the clock.     The good news is that there are some pretty basic calendaring tips you can use, to set things straight, massively improve your process and reduce stress.     The first thing you can do is to create ‘self-imposed deadlines’ – so, simply: not deadlines that other people require from you .  As an estate plann ing attorney, there’s no settled time frame for when you need to complete your clients’ documents,

Smart Move: Business Intelligence Is All Around Us

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For B2C lawyers, understanding their clients and the industries in which their clients participate , is essential for being able to convert leads and manage the attorney-client relationship .  The good news is that business intelligence information is more readily available tha n ever before .  It’s simply a matter of making the effort : to find it, and analyze it.   The sources for business intelligence are staggering .  On social media platforms, you can find information about businesses and business owners – helpfully, that is content that they curate and publish, which means you can get a better sense for what they value .  Directory profiles online also offer helpful business information – both content aggregated by vendors, as well as content that can be added by business owners .  Company websites are more robust, and packed with information , than ever before.  Setting up a Google Aler t for people and organizations gets you the latest news, automatically.     The more

Inside Job: Lots of Your Existing Tech Offers Built-In Reports

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Attorneys are slowly starting to access data about their law firms , so that they can make more informed decisions about what they will do to manage their businesses .   And, each day, data is being aggregated around your law practice , which means the information pile from which you have to pull, continues to increase.   So, how do you organize it, in an effective way?     Well, the good news is that the softwares you use every day, contain reporting functionality.  All o f your case management software, customer relationship management software and accounting software, are capable of generating reports , of two types.   First, there are ‘default’ reports, that are included in every software, which are built-in, and which you can click a button for, and run .  Then, there are ‘custom’ reports ’, that you can build yourself – by aggregating fields ( including custom field s) to generate new sets of information, that are viable and useful for your business . . . though , per