Articles

Maximize your Google searches

See TechnoLawyer for the following item:

“Google has a habit of introducing new features without making accompanying announcements. Therefore, even if you use Google daily, you may not know about certain features. Today, I’ll run through some of my favorites.

“A few months ago, Google released a service vastly superior to the competition – Google Maps. (EP Note: After being sent on wild goose chases by Yahoo! and MapQuest, I’m going to try Google!) The maps are clear and easy to manipulate, and the driving directions are the next best thing to having a GPS navigation system. Google Maps also provides satellite images so take a look at your home.

“Most people know that you can use Google as a dictionary. Just enter a word, and Google provides a link to a definition. If you misspell it, Google will provide the correct spelling. But Google recently overhauled this system to provide additional functionality such as a thesaurus and encyclopedia. The latter needs more work – it can provide a bio of Theodore Roosevelt, but not Bill Clinton.

“For more than a year, Google News has provided a remarkable service that few people know about – simply run a search and then click on “News Alerts” to save that search and sign up for e-mail alerts. Thereafter, Google will e-mail you links to news articles that match your search. (EP Note: This is a great service. Try “googling” your own name and see how often you’re quoted.) Recently, Google added the ability to receive e-mail alerts for Web pages that match your search as well.

“Two weeks ago, Google unveiled Search History – a service that saves all your searches. The service is optional so ignore all the controversy. Furthermore, even if you sign up, you can pause it, which means you can use it only when conducting the kind of research you’d like to save. You can also delete any of your searches….”


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Challenging the Billable Hour in Public

A law firm has created and is running an ad campaign that challenges the billable hour. Larry Bodine writes about it.

In marketing, the standard advice is “be different.” McGuire Woods certainly will be that with its ad campaign and may just succeed in increasing. Some years ago, Ross Fishman used this technique (be different) to create a large buzz when his firm “guaranteed” that people would be satisfied with the service they received from the firm. Today, that firm has grown substantially, in part, because of the very successful ad campaign. The offering of the campaign was so different that business publications like Wall Street Journal, et al, picked it and ran news stories about the campaign and the firm.

Now that’s getting a “bang for your buck!”


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Coaching is an important ingredient for success

“… coaches work one-on-one with a select few who, with some tailored training and support, break through to higher levels of achievement. The focus of the coaching is to shape the raw material of attorneys’ capability into the proven experience of skilled service providers who know how to keep existing business and expand and develop new opportunities at the same time. In other words, to work with motivated professionals to make them into full equity partners.” See more by Felice Wagner on the qualities and value of coaches and the coaching process.


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Managing your staff is critical to your success

Average managers treat all their employees the same. Great managers discover each individual’s unique talents and bring these to the surface so everyone wins. An excerpt from Harvard Business Review.

Lawyers, like managers in every profession, trade and other commercial endeavor, must connect with their staff. Failure to do so will cause conflict, will cause disharmony within the firm and, worst of all, will result in poor client relations.

At the far end of the spectrum, poor law firm (attorney)-client relations is the stuff from which malpractice actions and Bar disciplinary complaints are made.

Pay attention to your most important asset in the firm, your human capital. It walks out every evening. you need to make sure that it returns in the morning, willing and able to do what’s needed for you and your clients.


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Unbundling your service to lower your price

When you have to bend on the price you quote a client, be sure you first list the things you do for the client for that price. Then, when you lower your price in order to respond to the client’s request (based on your competition), take some of those things off the table. Thus, you are not really “lowering the price.” You’re adjusting the price to fit the appropriate level based on the service to be delivered. (more…)


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What is your “Credit Score”?

Credit score is an important, but seldom discussed, criterium by which banks and other creditors make decisions about whether to do business with you on credit. See the recent TechnoLawyer article for more information.


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Need cash quickly?

Revenue from new clients paid within 60-90 days at a law firm is nearly impossible, as the average billing cycle once you do new work is 120 days.

If you really need revenue in 60-90 days, you should look to collecting existing accounts receivable as the first threshold, then focus on doing work for existing clients who pay their bills promptly. To be more effective, you must manage accounts receivable and focus attorneys’ attention on doing work for “paying clients.” (more…)


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A new Jack Welch

See the current issue of Newsweek with Jack Welch on the cover. This is the hard-nosed leader who “created” GE, who became the idol of all M.B.A. graduates and was titled, The Guru of Modern Business.” Now, Mr. Welch is talking about the Balance of Life!

I find it interesting that folks who have already made their fortune, and no longer need to work, talk about a “balance of life.”

I find it equally interesting that it is generally large firm lawyers who talk about how unseemly it is to “sell” or “market” legal services and vote to use the rules of professional conduct to make it unethiccal to advertise and otherwise solicit for new clients.

Yet, it is the law firms of these very same lawyers that use entertainmnet and other traditional means of marketing to get their business. What’s wrong with this picture?


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