The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Speed of response and engagement is essential for starting legal consumers on the client journey .  If you don’t get to your leads quickly, you won’t have a chance to close them.  So, it’s important that, if someone calls your law firm, you pick up . . . or, have someone pick up for you.  That’s in part because 64% of law firms voicemails are never returned.     But, most lawyers aren’t picking up the phones on their own.  And, traditionally, the answer for that was that the law firm would hire a receptionist, who s a t in the exact same, physical space every day, while answer ed phone calls on the same , exact phone.  But now , you’ve got more options.   You can still hire a full-time, traditional legal secretary or receptionist, who can sit at a desk and pick up the phone , sure .  But, VoIP phone systems can be used from any internet-ready device.  So, you could have that person work outside the office.  And, if you didn’t w...

Many law firm owners are comfortable just paying out a salary.  And, that can work, for sure.  But, if you want to drive revenue within your law firm, it makes sense to look at bonusing attorneys and staff in ways that will incentivize your employees to generate or close more cases for the firm, which will lead to additional revenue.     Obviously, this is a bit easier for attorney staff, since lawyers can share fees with each other, which makes it easier to create a direct incentive plan.  But, for staff , you can bonus them without sharing fees, including for converting clients from leads, for example, by doing things like offering a $50 bonus for each lead closed, potentially in a certain time frame.   This is the same method that lead generation services use to get paid by law firms, without sharing fees.   But, the place that law firm owners can really make money here is by using origination fees to bonus their attorney staff.  Law firms ca...

Law firms were sitting in the cat-bird seat for quite a while, in terms of the job marketplace.  Now, employees have the upper hand.  So, how can a law firm with hiring needs find success in a marketplace where they’re no longer in the driver’s seat?  Well, there’s no perfect solution; but, here are a few suggestions you could employ:     First, try to make your law firm a more compelling environment for potential hires.  Does your website look like an enjoyable place to work, or does everyone’s headshot seem like it’s a hostage photo?  How do your social media profiles look?   What does your content that you produce say about your law firm?  Every job candidate is going to vet your web presence; and, what you’re doing there has to appeal to your potential hires, in the same way that it do es to your potential clients. Second, you’ll need to rethink your compensation model.  While salary isn’t the only thing that new attorney hires ...

No one likes meetings; and, that includes lawyers who manage other attorneys, or staff.  I hear about it all the time: too many meetings, too much wasted time.     Well, there are at least a couple of ways that law firms can reduce meetings and meeting time.   The first is to lean into technology, to reduce the need for certain meetings.  If you can delegate work effectively , and add workflows to softwares , you won’t need to hold as many status meetings (or, you may be able to eliminate them entirely) – because, you will always have a window into upcoming , completed and overdue tasks, via dashboards visible across a number of task management software s .  Do it right . . . and, you’ll never have to host a case review meeting ever again.     The second thing you can do is to change the kind of meetings you have.  Instead of holding endless, agenda-less meetings, opt for perhaps the most stripped down - meeting option available.  That...