The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

It’s a well-known fact that attorneys don’t spend enough effort staying in touch with clients and referral sources.  Updates are substantive and never personal.   Of course, that’s a problem -- because  much of modern marketing is executing on an omnichannel plan, and staying relevant by staying in touch.     So, if your law firm is really bad about  keeping in touch with clients and referrals sources, why not pretend like you just started your law firm?  Reannounce yourself to the world, then use that as the launching pad for a consistent marketing program.   So, what would you do if you were reopening a law firm, say ,  10 years in?   Glad you asked; here are three options:   -Collect the fullest contact list you can (former and existing clients, referral sources and colleagues, friends and family), and send out an email  about your practice.  Reorient people into what you do, and del...

Remember  that old Twilight Zone episode ?  ( It’s a cookbook! )   Well, this time, it’s  not hungry aliens  that are coming for us: it’s your server, and what it really wants is your wallet.   If you haven’t fully adopted cloud software, you’re likely storing your documents and email on a server.  But, there are a lot of associated costs for maintaining physical servers, like: the space they require, their need to be cooled, the electricity they suck up, the requirement to manage your own data backup and the frequent replacement cost.   But, when you are entirely cloud-based, you’re essentially renting server space from another entity (probably Amazon or Google, even if you’re using another vendor), and all those affiliated costs go away.  And, since  the cloud is essentially eternal (at least so far as your lifespan is concerned)  the replacement cost never accrues.  Instead, you pay monthly o r  annual fees for ...

Goal setting for attorneys is often circular.  Most times, their goal is to set goals  😊 .   But, because la wyer s don’t utilize goal setting, they  underachieve.  They’ve got nothing to strive for, nothing to compete over, nothing to drive them to the next chapter of their business.  This is probably the chief reason why the status quo dominate s  law firm management, and why most law firms exist in suspended animation.  It’s why I’m never surprised to talk to an attorney who sounds like he’s running a law firm from 1999.   It matters less what your goals are, than that you set them.  If you’re interested in making more money, run some revenue projections, and set specific revenue goals.  If you want more of a lifestyle practice, figure out how you’re going to work less, and build more time into your schedule -- and then create actionable goals to get  you  there.   Maybe you want to grow your l...

All lawyers have marketed their law firms in the same fashion since time  in memoriam .  The idea was always to build a personal referral base via business networking, and that the rest would take care of itself.  Even as the world around law firms has changed over time, that  one  constant has not changed.   But now , if a new report is to be believed, other modes of client acquisition may be outstripping this tried and true option.   The 2019 Clio Legal Trends Reports indicates that fewer potential law firm clients are seeking referrals from other attorneys or affiliated professional service providers .   In fact, the study indicates that legal consumers are more likely to ask family members for a referral .  And, more than half the time, a legal consumer performs independent research to locate the right attorney.   Of course , most of those preferred mechanisms do not align with how attorneys work to acqu...