The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Most attorneys feel overwhelmed by everything they need to do.  Especially for solo and small firm lawyers, this can be crushing.     It helps to take a step back, redefine your goals, reset your tasks, and focus on what you need to do now.  For many attorneys, they’re just trying to do everything at once, which is impossible; and so, they end up multitasking themselves into extinction.     Of course, while establishing an order of operations is immensely helpful, you still need a good system, through which to manage all your tasks, and to stagger them in the order you want.   It’s likely that you already have a task management system in place – in fact, pretty much every productivity (email) s oftware , or  law practice  management system has one built in.   But,  you may find those lacking , in terms of the task functionality .  If you do, there are a lot of great task management tools, that focus on that one operation, ...

As COVID restrictions are lifting across the country, and business owners and their employees are deciding whether or how to come back together in an office setting, the question persists: How and when should people meet for work?     Whether you’re in-person, at home or mixing it up – you and your team are probably not meeting enough.     It’s easy to let staff meetings slip through the cracks as a busy managing attorney.   But,  if you’re not organizing them – nobody else will.   Cadence: How Do You Meet Now? And ,  organization is the key component:  You can’t hold regular meetings if you don’t put them on the calendar.  You won’t hold focused  meetings, if  you don’t develop an agenda.  Regardless of whether you hold those meetings online or in-person, the same organizational principles apply.     And, if you don’t want to commit to long-form weekly meetings, borrow a scrum tactic, and adopt daily ‘ stan...

Sailors use a series of flags to indicate danger ;  Billy Joel occasionally names albums after such flags .     Lawyers ignore red flags – at least when they relate to client engagement.     As has been discussed in this space, attorneys tend to  avoid  the intake process.  And, a byproduct of that is that law firms often engage with clients they shouldn’t – largely because they haven’t done enough due diligence in the lead phase.  Attorneys tend to ignore their gut feelings about the potential  for  longstanding pain o n  a specific engagement, when there’s a check (virtual or otherwise) on the table.     But, books like  the ‘Checklist Manifesto’  have shown that simple lists can be really effective in helping professionals to make big decisions.     So, if you don’t have a list of red flags for potential clients , you may end up stepping in it, down the road.  Maybe you think those red flag...

Attorneys hate to think of themselves as ‘salespeople’ – but, if you’re a law firm owner/manager, you’re selling things the same way everyone else who owns a business is selling things.     Though, you might not be selling what you think you are . . .     Legal consumers are not like  you : They don’t know as many Latin phrases as you do.  They don’t care about arcane statutes.  Precedent is meaningless to them.  Heck: they probably don’t even have a ballpoint pen.   What they do ha v e is a big problem, that they want someone  else  to solve.     And,  you’re th at someone else; you’re the  problem-solver.     Keep that in mind when trying to convert your leads.  They’re stressed; they really want to hire you – and, they’re making an emotional buying decision, which is what most purchases come down to anyway.     Once a potential client is having a retention conversation with you, they’v...