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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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Ed Poll
LawBiz Management
(800) 827-5415
edpoll@lawbiz.com
LAWBIZ® EXPERT RENEWED AS PROVIDER FOR LEGAL EDUCATION
Ed Poll Was Renewed as an Approved Provider of Education for California Lawyers
Venice, Calif. September 13, 2007 – California-based law practice management expert and lawyer Edward Poll was once again approved as a provider of education for lawyers licensed by the State of California for the term of September 1, 2007 to December 31, 2010.
(more…)
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At the ABA conference in San Francisco last week, I had the pleasure to moderate an outstanding panel of experts about the financial management of their firms and their “best practices.” The panel consisted of Bob Hirshon, CEO of Stoel Rives in Portland, OR (and former ABA president); Marcia Wasserman, COO of Nossaman Guthner Knox & Elliott; Larry Kleinberg, CFO of Munger Tolles & Olson; and Ron Yano, CFO of Loeb & Loeb.
Reid Trautz mentioned his observations from our panel:
“From a terrific panel of firm financial managers moderated by Ed Poll, comes these interesting ideas:
- Firms are taking advantage of the new check scanners offered by some banks to more quickly and securely deposit client checks.
- More firms are closing their billing on the 25th day of each month to get their bills into the “first of the month” billing cycle of clients–both businesses and individuals.
- Law firms are putting more pressure on partners to collect bills sooner (nothing new there!), but they are using automated e-mail and other added technology features now available in many time & billing programs to keep the pressure on, well, automatically!
- Larger firms are doing more to ensure that each new client matter has a signed representation letter or agreement before starting any work. This is a smart practice, and is just one area where large firms tend to lag behind smaller firms.”
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In response to an inquiry about communciations being the essential ingredient for disaster recovery planning, I responded as follows: (more…)
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