Category: Management

Are lawyers more or less ethical than taxi companies?

A further thought on this subject:

There seems to be something amiss here. Are lawyers ahead or behind the business curve? Are we more or less ethical than taxi companies? (more…)

Education is the basis for future law firm growth

Manufacturer Ben Serotta, founder of Serotta Competition Bicycles, had a problem: The sales staff at his 320 independent bike retailers failed to fit their customers properly; the result was that his hand-built frames didn’t satisfy his objective. He decided that the instruction manuals, brochures and occasional face-to-face sessions with the disparate sales staff just didn’t suffice. (more…)

New Law Practice Management Advice Column

September 27, 2005

New Business Advice Column for Attorneys Launches in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly

Readers of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly opened their papers yesterday to find a new business advice column for attorneys, written by one of the country’s top law business experts, Ed Poll, JD, MBA. CMC.

The column can also be read on the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly website www.masslaw.com.

Ed Poll is a leading authority in the field of law practice management and the President of Law Biz Management Co., a firm that consults with and coaches lawyers and law firms throughout the United States, Mexico, and England. He is the author of several best-selling books on the topics of law practice management, including his new book, Selling Your Law Practice, just released in September.

Poll first became involved with disaster preparedness as a result of 9/11. At the time, many of his large firm clients found themselves unprepared for disasters. Poll launched a roundtable of these firms to create a template for future preparedness. As a result, many of these larger firms are now better prepared for larger disasters.

Yesterday’s column reflected some of Poll’s lessons, both past and present.

For more information on Ed Poll, please go to www.lawbiz.com or call 1-800-837-5880.

Quality control is ever more important!

The Florida Supreme Court recently ruled that legal malpractice can be alleged against an attorney or law firm by a third party who had not retained the lawyer’s or law firm’s services. (more…)

Idea Management

See Matt Homann’s comments today at The NonBillable Hour.

Matt has agreed to have LexThink be the “idea management” team for the National Speakers Association, LA Chapter’s, Summer Symposium set for September 16-18th in Rancho Mirage. See my earlier posting on this outstanding conference and why lawyers must attend! (more…)

Dragon Naturally Speaking — Part II

Like others, the earlier versions of Dragon left me complacent. I type very quickly and feel I have greater control using the typing modality.

However, I recently went to version 8 (standard), purchased a much better microphone (AcousticMagic) for about $250 and engaged a consultant to set up the system for me. Voila! Everything works nicely now. The real issue is the training of the system with your voice. And this is an on-going process. The more perfection you want, the more time you must spend in the training process. The more you are willing to accept the result as either a draft or as a version that your secretary can clean up later, the more pleased you will be with less training effort.

The total out-of-pocket cost, including the consultant, approaches $2,000. Well worth the cost. The real cost, however, as always, is your time in the training process. No one can do this but you …. And whether this is a valuable use of your time is dependent on the factors mentioned above as well as your own personality, your need for this modality and your level of patience/perfection.

Should I use Dragon Naturally Speaking?

The question is being asked of me: Should I go back to using digital transcription or should I get the latest version of Dragon Naturally Speaking? (Note: I’m frustrated with Miscrosoft’s version and am ready to throw out my computer because of it!) (more…)

The State Bar is clearly NOT a business

Otherwise they would have acted differently!

I find it interesting that people scratch their heads about why lawyers fail to support the Bar. In California, Governor Pete Wilson vetoed a Bar dues bill which would have allowed the State Bar to send out its billings for that year. This is old news.

The new part of it is that the lawyers in the Bar failed to support the Bar en masse; if they had, the Governor would have had to relent. When Governor Wilson, with a very long memory for an old slight, got even with the Bar, there was no one there to defend the Bar.

The Legislature, under a new governor, adopted a bill; the Bar sent out its dues, a couple of years late, but still … better late than never.

As part of the bill, and the negotiation with the Bar that enable the adoption of the bill, law practice management was deleted as a designated category of education for MCLE.

Last year, a committee of the Board of Governors unanimously supported a resolution to re-designate law practice management as study category. For reasons not pertinent to this comment, the committee delayed sending the resolution to the full Board of Governors. Two weeks ago, that same committee reconsidered the resolution. Now the vote was 3-2 to kill the resolution and not send it to the full Board of Governors.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Lawyers in California spend 80% of their dues each year to support the California disciplinary system. More than 50% of all complaints against lawyers involved somre sort of management failure on the part of lawyers.

If studying management could reduce the number of complaints (and all evidence supports this), then the cost savings presumably would also enable a dues reduction.

And you say that that is too logical for a bureaucratic instituion, one that has no profit motive or measurement stick. And they wonder why lawyers fail to support their agenda.

What are you paying for?

Stephen Pratt, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Consulting, Inc., organizes work around the workers. This approach moves work to workers rather than workers to work. Support and expertise can be piped in by telephone in today’s world by way of the the internet as well as by telephone (now over the internet with VOIP). The real collaborative stuff (the real value that professionals offer), he says, is done at the client’s site. (more…)