The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Lawyers tend to b uild a high percentage of their revenue out of referral marketing done with other lawyers.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But, there may be gaps in what you’re doing.     Generally speaking , lawyer-to-lawyer referral marketing is focus ed on finding someone with a complementary practice are a , who can refer you cases, and to whom you can refer cases back.  Usually, you’re looking for someone with a different practice niche, eg – a criminal attorney sending w ork to an immigration lawyer.     But, even inside of niches, you can make referrals.   Let’s look at some examples: Estate planning attorneys can refer cases if one takes taxable estate work, and the other does not.  Personal injury attorneys can refer cases to each other, if one doesn’t litigate.  Family law attorneys can refer cases to each other if one is an estate planning attorney, and the other is a divorce lawyer.   A more experienced at...

With the ubiquity of cloud software and sophistication in legal marketing on the rise, there is not a single thing you can’t track as a law firm, when it comes to marketing.   First off, every web marketing campaign, from SEO to social media ads, come with identifiable criteria, that allows attorneys to track for ‘lead sources’, as well as for specific marketing campaigns.  You can even track phone calls via lead source and campaign, using a software like Call Rail .     Now, even if you do get walk-ins, who have no attachment to the internet whatsoever, in having come in to see you – you can still capture that data online/electronically, by using an intake form or a chat, to have the lead complete on their smartphone, on a tablet, or with the assistance of your staff.   Just ask them how they found you, and give them lots of options across default or custom form fields.     So, if you’re thinking that it’s really tough to determine return on investmen...

Every year, on your malpractice insurance application, you’re asked to identify a ‘backup attorney’ – another attorney who can help you to manage your practice for short-term (or, long-term) absences.  Now, most lawyers just write down any old name, often without much thought – and, usually without asking the subject whether or not they even want to be a backup attorney.     But, not only should you be more thoughtful about making the selection in the first place, you should (especially if you are a solo attorney, or the sole owner of a small firm) build your backup attorney relationship with succession planning in mind.  And, while most lawyers who tackle this problem think of it in that way: here’s how ownership of the law firm will pass upon my disability or death – there is another really useful aspect of adding a backup attorney, which is to cover for short-term absences.     Now, I can tell you some stories about solo attorneys, who never go on vac...

Effective billing, like learning any skill, require s repetition.     If you can use the same process for billing every time, it makes it much easier to repeat that process, including for collection purposes.     But, as with many things that require repetition in business, the use of templates can help tremendously, in streamlining your law firm processes .   So, the first question is whether you use ‘activity codes’ for billing.  If you do, it’s easier to generate items on an invoice, tied to the specific activities you perform for clients regularly.  There are activity codes/billing codes for law firms available online (‘LEDES billing’ is a common set of activity codes for law firms to employ), and some softwares include default activity codes for billing – but, you can also generate and maintain your own activity codes, if you wish.   All you need to do is create a shorthand for the task, and maybe employ a number, to make it look official,...