The National Creditors Bar Association Law Practice Management Blog

Lawyers tend to manage in place.  They oversee staff by walking around the office, to randomly check in on people,  like  Lumberg  from ‘Office Space’ .   They can also be vicious micromanagers.  It’s understandable to an extent, of course;  if someone in the office screws up in a major way, it’s the attorney’s license that’s on the line.  I get it.  But, there is a better way; and, a way that is becoming increasingly necessary  for law firms .   In the current environment, law firms are managing distributed workforces on the fly.  Often, there’s no more  physical  office  available  to be occupied ,  to walk around  in .  No more coworkers in your physical presence to hover over.  So, what do you do  now ?     It’s time to finally rely on technology to manage your law firm.  Managing a remote staff is about  creating task-based, time-sensitive workflows , in...

The coronavirus pandemic has shaken the global health and economic infrastructure.  The legal field is still reeling; and, law firms are adjusting to a new world.  For modern law firms to succeed, it’s clear that providing virtual services is now a requirement; it’s no longer optional.  But, taking  the  ‘e’ out of things like  epayments  and  esignature , and normalizing those items as  ‘ just ’  payments or signatures is going to take a significant mindset change for the vast majority of lawyers.   Every law firm is going to have to adjust to virtual practice in a compressed time frame, in order to modernize for a  clientbase  that will require it.  It’s not the best-case scenario, of course, that it took a major pandemic to usher a new age of technology into the law firm environment.   But,  the change will ultimately benefit lawyers, too.  Now, it’s a question of how rapidly your law firm can a...

When it comes to engagement agreements, law firms often practice a ‘less is more’ philosophy.  Doing what is ethically required in terms of identifying rates and  scope of representation covers what you  need  to tell  your  clients; but, it may not be all that you  want  to tell  your  clients.   M odern law firms, as well as modern legal consumers, can also focus on important additional clauses.  For instance, modern legal consumers may want to know about the technology a law firm uses, as well as the data security principles to which it adheres.  Modern legal consumers expect that type of transparency from data and software companies; and, as law firms become more technically viable moving forward, there are  going to be more similarities than differences between those two (seemingly wholly different) business models.   If this sounds like a thrilling (well, maybe not) new endeavor, you can st...

Law firms that require paper-based signatures are committed to in-person meetings ;  b ut,  th ose  may not always be feasible .  In some cases, the decision is out of the lawyers’ hands,  for example:  during a personal, national or global disaster.  Of course, there are ot her reasons why your law firm may want to utilize  esignatures .  Not requiring a physical signature likely means that you  can add new clients faster ,  because you won’t have to set up an on-person meeting  to do it .  With  e signatures , signing can take place  closer to the time of conversion, which also means  that  you can get started working faster.  It also may be more  convenient for a potential client or existing client to sign online, perhaps because they don’t want to come to your  office, and  pay for parking.  There are a million reaso ns for law firm clients to prefer  esignatures . ...