The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Remember  that old Twilight Zone episode ?  ( It’s a cookbook! )   Well, this time, it’s  not hungry aliens  that are coming for us: it’s your server, and what it really wants is your wallet.   If you haven’t fully adopted cloud software, you’re likely storing your documents and email on a server.  But, there are a lot of associated costs for maintaining physical servers, like: the space they require, their need to be cooled, the electricity they suck up, the requirement to manage your own data backup and the frequent replacement cost.   But, when you are entirely cloud-based, you’re essentially renting server space from another entity (probably Amazon or Google, even if you’re using another vendor), and all those affiliated costs go away.  And, since  the cloud is essentially eternal (at least so far as your lifespan is concerned)  the replacement cost never accrues.  Instead, you pay monthly o r  annual fees for ...

Efficient law firms return the most revenue, by a wide margin.  Yet, much of what law firms do cuts against efficiency: Attorneys tend to avoid modern technology.  Attorney like to do things themselves, and so they avoid effective delegation.  Attorneys want manual processes, which they feel they have more control over.   Of course, this is not the way to practice at the top of your law license: billing at your highest rates, or acquiring more work that you can  bill  at your highest rates.   Too often, lawyers are trying to pilot the plane, and hand out the pretzels.   While it’s true that delegation is a proven method for driving efficiency, law firms need not always delegate from managing attorneys to associate attorneys or staff.  Automation of rote tasks and processes is often more effective.  Consider the chain of events reflecting on law firm lead intake: scheduling, emails, contact forms, chat or text com...

Most lawyers think of ‘virtual law practice’ as an all-in sort of thing:   Either you’re completely virtual, or you’re not virtual at all.  Only, that’s not the case.  Even virtual law practices intending to be totally virtual don’t ever  really  get there.  For one thing, law firms (due in part to jurisdictional limitations) are almost always physical entities, in some sense, even if the physical entity is a home office and  the physical network is  a limited number of local referral sources.  So, at least in this day and age, it’s almost impossible to be  completely  virtual.   And, that notion changes the complexion of this entire conversation .    I f a virtual  law  practice doesn’t have to be  totally  virtual -- what percentage  does  it have to be virtual?  95%?  92%?  4 7 %?  3%?  The fact of the matter is that it is really hard to def...

Lawyers are funny in that they sometimes treat cloud technology vendors  like visitors from another planet ,  featuring a mixture of awe and fear.  ( ‘To Serve Man’ - it’s a cookbook! )   This stems from an unfamiliarity with cloud tools; but, lawyers aren’t dumb -- they’re just occupied business managers whose primary focus is the substantive tasks they need to do.  Next comes marketing.  Then comes technology.   If you want the  TL;DR  version of the cloud, here it is: When you use cloud technology, you’re renting space on someone else’s servers (your vendor’s) instead of buying your own.  It’s as simple as that.  And, the reason people love cloud technology is because you access it via the internet.  That means such systems are device agnostic; and, that means you can work from anywhere ( Maui? ) you can  find  a secure internet connection.   Now then, you may be saying to yourself: ‘That’s...