The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

One attribute that the most successful law firms share is that those businesses have established and maintained a performance culture built around key performance indicators (KPIs); in truth, that’s probably the same for the majority of businesses, full stop.     So, how do you launch a program that works, once you’ve established your metrics.   It’s a three-step process, essentially – and, it is just that: a process .  If you try to launch KPIs in your law firm, without a process, you’re likely to run into lots of resistance, which will slow you down, or entirely stop you.     Socialize. The first step is to ‘socialize’ your new KPIs = essentially, you’re just getting people used to them.  So, announce them, and report on them – but, don’t do anything about them (positive or negative), as yet.  Wait a quarter or two, then move to the next step.     Incentivize. Now, you want to move to the next step: start to incentivi...

I understand: getting new office software is exciting .  It’s probably the closest thing there is to Christmas for adult lawyers .  So, the natural reaction is to roll said software out, in full, in all its glory , as soon as possible, and right away .  But, you need to slow your roll.     You know it’s ironic, because attorneys are generally pretty risk-averse . . . except in this case; and, this is a place where it really pays to be risk-averse.   You should always ‘soft launch’ a new software, ie – test it first, before rolling it out in full; or, committing to a ‘hard launch ’.   There are always unknowns in testing new softwares of vendors; so, it makes sense to try them out in a smaller pond, before unleashing them on to your entire clientbase , or firm.     So, if you’re ready to use a new case management software, try it in a ‘sandbox’ version first, with ‘dummy’ data .  Or, if you want to test out a new virtual rec...

At this point, you’ve likely tried a generative AI tool, like ChatGPT, which systems engage large language models, to answer your questions (prompts) .  One of the best things about GPTs – and, a sizable advantage over traditional search tools – is that you can iterate with those: communicating back and forth with them, as if they were other humans.   Now, if you want to try a different spin on that model , check out either Google Notebook LM of Microsoft CoPilot Notebooks .  With these tools, you can engage artificial intelligence on a ‘small language model ’.   Effectively, that means that you can load your own sources , and that the AI will only interact with those .  You can create and share notebooks, the same way you can save your chats with traditional GPTs .  Notebooks will also generate learning modules from your sources, including audio conversation s (like an AI-generated podcast), flashcards and mind maps .   Plus, these tools ret...