It’s time to stop focusing on real estate, construction, banks, mortgage companies and airlines, according to Larry Bodine. Go where the money is: energy, steel, industrial metals, coal companies and railroads. See the 10 Best Performing Industries on MarketWatch.com.
This reminds me of the book written by Harvey MacKay, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty or the phrase "… fish where the bass are…"
In other words, provide services that your clients need … If your skills are no longer in hot demand, modify your practice area to adapt your skills to the needs of the clients. If you’re in the larger firms, and are practicing real estate law currently, you might be better advised to learn bankruptcy or workouts to adapt your current skills to the needs of the clients. If you’re in a small firm or sole practice, this might be more difficult to accomplish with less personal economic impact, but still possible.
The key is to either provide services the market needs … or to have the capital to sustain the wait until the market comes back to your skills.
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Michael Brychel, Senior Legal Auditor at Stuart Maue, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, writes an interesting review of our newest publication, Law Firm Fees & Compensation: Value & Growth Dynamics.
He says, "For those who accept the premise that “law firms ARE businesses – get over it” this book will be an effective jump start to incorporating that perspective into useful practice."
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Price and value are clearly not the same when it comes to legal fees. While both are time sensitive (as of any given moment in time), the former generally is set by the seller/lawyer and the latter is generally perceived by the buyer/client. Price can be value, in my opinion, when the client is involved in the setting of the legal fee and price is determined by the value perceived by the client. Some folks call this "value billing."
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Last week-end, I was attending a Vintage Airstream rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as mentioned in a previous post.
Because our “new” vintage Airstream is still being built and our “old” vintage Airstream was totaled from our December accident, we could not stay at the rally, but had sleeping quarters about 10 miles away, a short car ride. To get there, we had a short stint on Highway 550, a heavily trafficked thoroughfare in the area, so I’m told. As we got close to our destination, I noticed the highway was streaming with police. It looked like a major car accident; as I got closer, it looked like a disaster. I could tell the roadway had been narrowed by cones and police cars into one lane. And as I approached the head of the line, a policeman approached me. Suddenly, I realized that I was in the middle of a road block!
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CLEVELAND. April 28, 2008— National law practice management expert, Ed Poll J.D. M.B.A. CMC, starts a three-city tour through Ohio to deliver presentations on law firm profitability strategies sponsored by the Ohio Bar Association. Poll, the founder of LawBiz® Management Co., will present his program “Sound Strategies & Best Practices for Law Firms: Boot Camp for the Small Firm” to lawyers and firms from Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. The program is accredited for the state’s Continuing Legal Education program.
“We are very pleased to have Ed present to our members throughout the state,” says Fran Wellington, Director of the CLE Institute for the Ohio State Bar Association. “The presentation has been approved for CLE credit and will be very beneficial for attorneys in managerial roles and professional legal administrators.”
Poll will emphasize the importance of running a financially sound firm. His underlying themes for the groups will include creating a streamlined process to bill clients from billable hours with regular invoices, incorporating business management and marketing strategies in firm administration, and building a comprehensive recovery plan. He will also explain the value of cash flow management, calculating fiscal earnings, how and when to increase fees, as well as providing tips on forecasting for the future.
Poll’s presentation addresses the operations and practice development issues that lawyers are not formally trained to perform. As a former practicing attorney and CEO in the manufacturing industry, Poll understands that the business strategies that make companies profitable are fundamentally the same for law firms. He believes that for some lawyers there is a disconnect between focusing on the output of a firm, in terms of handling case loads and briefs, and crafting a business plan that includes a formal billing process and marketing strategy.
“It’s a great opportunity to be invited to present this program to a wide selection of lawyers throughout the state,” says Poll, who just released his newest book Law Firm Fees & Compensation: Value & Growth Dynamics (LawBiz® Management, Co., 2008). “I develop my presentations with lawyers in mind, so that they can bridge the gap between law and business and implement policies that will have a lasting effect.”
For more information on Ed and LawBiz® Management Co., please visit www.LawBiz.com or for his blog www.LawBizBlog.com. To contact Ed, call or email T.K. Hall at 617-717-8294 or TK@IctusInitiative.com.
About Ed Poll
Ed Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC, is a nationally-recognized expert in law practice management. He helps attorneys and law firms increase their profitability, consulting with them on issues of internal operations, business development, and financial matters. Ed brings his clients a solid background in both law and business. He has 25 years experience as a practicing attorney and has also served as CEO and COO for several manufacturing businesses. In 1990 he founded LawBiz® Management Company and is now focused on coaching, speaking, and training law firms.
Ed is the author of numerous publications that have become the definitive works in the field and has just released his newest book Law Firm Fees & Compensation: Value & Growth Dynamics (LawBiz® Management, Co., 2008). He is also a columnist for the Association of Legal Administrators and contributes the “LawBiz® Coach’s Corner” to Lawyers Weekly.
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A wonderful example of how Web 2.0 interaction generates ideas came from my blog post on adopting, and adapting to, online social networking sites like LinkedIn. In that post I speculated that such sites will increasingly become part of lawyers’ marketing efforts, but added that personal contact at meetings, on the phone and through hand-written notes will remain effective outreach tools.
Professor Alan Childress of Tulane Law School promptly picked up my theme and extended it on his own Legal Profession Blog. Professor Childress noted a truth that “seems to be lost” on law school students and younger lawyers: “Handwritten thank-you notes and other traditional communications are becoming even rarer in light of technology — and will surely catch the recipient’s eye a lot more than they used to, given the effort that seems to be required compared to emails and mass digital means.” (more…)
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Have you ever heard of giving a war and no one came?
How about going to a Vintage Airstream Rally with no Airstream? (more…)
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There’s LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Plaxo Pulse, and …. other social networks.
In a recent article by Larry Bodine, he cited the following statistics: Less than 8% surveyed believe social networking is important to them; 91% said they spend less than 25% of their online time working with social networks. Still, these are rather large numbers to be devoting to a networking process that is relatively new … As with other technologies, we will have to wait and see if this takes hold.
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Walter Mossberg, “personal technology” writer for the Wall Street Journal, highlighted a very interesting trend to a small group of consultants where I was a participant. He was looking at the industry from the 50,000 foot level when he said that it is the consumer that is driving change in technology. The winners in the race will be those who can develop new techniques to make the consumer’s life easier – without being a tech wizard.
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In a recent Los Angeles Times article, the headline read “Double-O: Better for Obama than Oprah.” The writers of the article cite a study by a Fordham University political science professor. He concluded that her popularity went from 74% before the endorsement to 56% and is currently at 46%. He suggests that Oprah’s endorsement for Obama was far more costly to her than might have been imagined. (more…)
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