Customer service is appreciated whenever it occurs.
My wife and I (and I dare not forget Bandit) are spending a few days in
Tucson, AZ at the Lazydays RV Park.
Gathered with us are close to 100 other Airstream rigs, from trailers,
to motorhomes ... from new to vintage as is ours.
The amenities are outstanding and, as usual, it is the people that make
an experience memorable.
They go out of their way to be friendly and accommodating. Their brochure
says that all their employees take weekly service instruction.
Can you identify a law firm that has done that?
Can lawyers use the iPad successfully or are they tied to the PC? Are iPads the future of the profession, or just another fad? Are other products as good as the iPad?
Our guest, Brett Burney of Burney Consultants, is a legal technology consultant who offers iPad training and support for law firms, as well as litigation support technologies with iPad, Mac and Windows. In this discussion Ed and Brett will compare and contrast the Ipad with other available products. Your can read more about Brett Burney at his web site www.burneyconsultants.com.
To paraphrase Charlie Wilson, Texas Congressman, from the movie, Charlie Wilson’s War, "…we changed the world, but we had no end game…" in Afghanistan. Chaos and catastrophe resulted. This reminds me of so many lawyers who have no "end game." They do not see the end of their law practice until, one day, they awake and decide they want to do something else, or they’re not feeling so good and their doctor tells them they have a "problem." They have not planned for this time; they have not taken their destiny into their own hands. It’s like going to the office without a plan for the day and reacting only when the phone rings.
I think that is what motivated me to write my new book, "Life After Law: What Will You Do With the Next 6000 Days?" I’ve seen this in so many of my clients; I’ve seen this in my own family. Perhaps I’m guilty of the same sin. But, you needn’t be. Create your own future. Know when you want to retire and what you want to do in your "retirement," your second season, the "next 6000 days" of your life.
Whether it’s a recession or a depression we’re in, several lessons have surfaced we cannot ignore. This week, Ed ponders what we can learn from this crisis to ensure we’re on the right track for the future.
Reminder note: IOLTA protection has changed as of January 1st … Be sure you review your clients’ trust account to confirm that your accounts are in balance and that they are below the maximum now protected. There no longer is unlimited protection … and that means that you may be personally liable for a bank defalcation that impacts your holdings. Check with the FDIC, or call 1-877–ASK-FDIC, or talk to your local banker to learn more.
Once again, the issue of large law firm partners being terminated by their firms arises. In today’s Wall Street Journal, the moral of the story is that lawyers must contribute to the well-being of their firm. If they don’t, they will be terminated irrespective of whether they are a partner (equity interest) or an associate (employee). In other words, they must adhere to the formula of The Business of Law® … P = R – E, the basic formula of all business. Or said another way, lawyers are now beginning to realize the practice of law is a business, just as every other service profession (and manufacturing and distribution) is. And, the line between partner and employee is becoming narrower each day.
In a recent article in the New York Times, the reporter focused on the proper issue … the productivity of the lawyer. Age is irrelevant. There are 80-somethings who are contributing to the “bottom line” of the firm and there are 20- and 30- somethings who are not. Those who do not contribute to the bottom line can be sustained in the firm for only so long before their weight begins to cause the firm to collapse. That is one of the primary reasons for the failure of many large firms in the recent past … the failure to address management decisions that impact the operation of the firm in a business-like manner.
Being a partner is no longer the key to the magic kingdom. Partnership agreements are written in such a way that a partner can be terminated from his/her equity position without much difficulty. “What have you done for me lately?” is not an idle phrase in the world of law firms. Just as every employee in every firm/company must contribute to the well-being of the organization. It’s for this reason that lawyers are concerned about maintaining strong client relationships and not willing to share their client information with others in the firm. Cross selling is a concept that is yet to be fully embraced because of this phenomenon.
Ways in which a lawyer can contribute to the bottom line and well-being of the law firm are contained in the formula: Increase the revenue of the firm (collected billings) or decrease the expenses of your efforts relative to the revenue you bring in. In other words, if you can produce client revenue that will keep other lawyers busy, if you bill a significant number of hours (or related value billing efforts) above the average, or if you have a key client relation that is significant for the firm, you will be viewed as an asset of the firm. If your collections decline, if your time expended doing client work declines or if you utilize a disproportionate share of the firm’s resources, then you will be a drag on the performance of the firm and, at some point, terminated.
If anything is different as a result of the Great Recession for law firms, it’s the realization that P = R – E, and law firms are governed by this formula as is everyone in the commercial world.
Fujitsu introduces its new high speed, low cost scanner today. I have a model sitting on my desk and it’s the same small footprint of the model 1500 that it replaces. The new model is much faster, 25 pages per minute (ppm); I have to keep my eyes open – that’s how fast it is. In a small office, such speed may not be so important, but it sure is nice to have this feature. Another feature that enhances the speed of operation is that the OCR feature begins to operate as you are scanning, not after the document is scanned.
Another new feature, however, is important. The new iX500 has a separation roller that prevents double feeds, meaning that no two pages go through at the same time. Each page gets copied separately and does not get “pasted” to another sheet. This used to drive me nuts. I’d have to watch the feeder to make sure each page went separately and when there was a problem, I’d have to do the scanning a second time. No worries now.
Another cool feature is that you can go to the App Store and download ScanSnap Connect onto you iPad, Android and iOS compatible devices. After you have the application on your iPad or other device, hit the “Scan” icon and pages will flow through your iX500 and the image will then be saved where you want it on your iPad. This saves the step of scanning onto your computer and then using Dropbox or similar program to bring it over to your iPad or laptop computer. What a cool feature and time saver!
Here are some additional features the new iX500 has to boast about:
* convenient way to store, manage and view PDF and JPEG files as well as performing post-scan editing
* transforming paperwork into editable Word®, Excel and PowerPoint files
* blank page detection and deletion
* 50 page document feeder
