The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

If you’re still sharing files with clients, referral sources and other attorneys, via email attachment – or, heaven forfend: fax! – you need to step up your game .  Email is an inherently unsecure technology; so, if you’re sending confidential information via email, you need to secure that information, by encrypting it – at the document level, or at the system level .  But, that takes additional time and effort, and cost s more.   Instead, why not share confidential information through a secure , encrypted platform, th rough which the person who is to receive the information logs into, thereby bypassing the email problem, where that information passes through several servers (some of which may be unencrypted), before reach ing its final destination .  With a client portal, your document stays where it is (safely encrypted), and your recipient comes in to get it.     Now, you can share files and documents via document storage programs in this fashi...

Law firm revenue usually has an ebb & flow to it, especially when you talk about firms that rely on hourly billing.   Most attorneys would probably say that their revenue is pretty unpredictable.     The only problem with that thesis is that it’s not entirely true .  Law firms can design some assumptions about what they’ll make by utilizing revenue projections .  Compare that to historical data, and you’re bound to find trends (and, likely, seasonality ), a s well as recurring themes around how and when you make money.   And, you don’t have to do it on your own .  If you utilize an accountant, bookkeeper, or (fractional) chief financial officer (CFO), you can ask that person to develop ‘cashflow projections’ for you ; and, you can do that on an annual basis , at the start of every new year .   The more you do that, the more accurate those projections will become.     Lots of law firms I talk to will say they’re having a b...

Nothing bottlenecks law firm case process (and progress) as much as waiting for your clients to do things .     Law firms can largely control internal policies & tasks; and, courts utilize definable deadlines .  But, when law firms request that clients do things . . . good luck !  They’ll straight up ignore you .  They’ll obfuscate .  They’ll waste your time, by getting back to you another issue, entirely .   In sum, they mostly won’t give you w hat you want, unless you stay on them.   The question then becomes: How do you do that?     The answer is consistent follow - ups .  Now, lots of law firms employ workflows; but, not a lot of law firms follow - up on client requests , in an aggressive fashion .  The good news is, that this has become easier than ever before, with software automation .  If you need a document . . . or an esignature . . . or a meeting to get calendared . . . You can simply add a...