The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Nobody wants to spend a whole lot of time on contacts – even if they’re really important to effectively marketing a law practice.  I mean, yeah: it’s super easy to just cut and paste emails or phone numbers, as you acquire those, rather than making an extra effort to also grab additional information.  But, the more data related to your contacts that you can accrue, the better – because you’ll have more information about the kind of messaging you want to relay to those folks.  So, that begs the question: Which folks , exactly ?     Ideally, your email (and text, etc. – if you’re using a marketing automation platform) marketing will be focused on specific groups, because the messaging for each of those groups will be varied .  For example, unless all you’re ever gonna do is a basic newsletter about your law firm, it would make sense that the kind of things you want to send to your existing clients, and your former clients, and other referral sources, likely including other at

My Dad, like all dads, had some choice phrase s to impart.  One was that I shouldn’t step over a dime, to pick a penny.  (Not sure why I would do that, but . . .)  And, that you have to spend money to make money.  It’s actually pretty sage business advice – especially for budget - conscious lawyers.   You see, there are a lot of solo and small firm lawyers out there, who are heavily-focused on budget management, and cutting costs down to the bone.  It’s the leanest and meanest of lean and mean methodologies.  But, getting lean is more about becoming more efficient, rather than trying to spend as little money as possible, to run your law firm.     The reason why lots of attorneys focus on reducing the law firm budget is so that they can increase their profit margin.  But, focusing solely on that side of the equation causes many lawyer s to ignore the other side of the coin, as it were , when it comes to profit margin.  That is, making more money (!) , against a stable budget, is

Managing people kind of sucks; it’s one of the hardest things to do as a business owner.  And, it’s hard to generate a formal employer/employee relationship, especially the first time you ever hire somebody.     You see it all the time; but, if you get too buddy-buddy with your employee, and you try to act like som e body’s friend – the next thing you know, your work ‘friend’ is taking three - hour lunches, or bagging at 3 pm, without any kind of notice.   This kind of thing is particularly fraught in a remote work environment.     Now, this can be remedied; but, it’s tough to fix (but, not impossible), once the horse is already out of the barn.  But, you also don’t need an internal HR person or COO, to make to create a professional distance between you and your staff(person).   There are several things you can do, even as solo business owner, to build in some control over your employee(s).  For one, it helps to have job descriptions.  How else is someone supposed to know what their wo

There’s a funny scene in the Pixar movie ‘Luca’ , where one of the main characters has labeled the negative voice in his head ‘Bruno’ – and, whenever he has thoughts about how he can’t do something, he yells ‘ Silenzio , Bruno!’ (they’re Italian), and so tamps down the fictional naysayer.     I mean, it’s a great strategy, honestly.   But, for many lawyers (and businesspeople generally), there ’s another, external voice, that can be highly bothersome.  Those are the notifications that constantly ping on your devices, and in software.     Look, the fact of the matter is that software and hardware for work is designed to be ‘in your face’ at all times.  Developers and CEOs know that you ’ r e always getting crushed with information, and being sen t notifications ; and , they have to muscle in somehow, too.  That’s why, when you buy something, they try to opt you in to update s .  And, that’s always why every software prompts you to enable notifications.     So, every time you get