Maine Law Practice Management

As law firms (slowly) try to dig out from under the hourly billing model (trap?), a new sort of approach is starting to gain some ground .  It’s kind of like a legal insurance policy, and it allows law firms to acquire recurring revenue .  ‘Client maintenance plans’ are mostly being used by estate planning and elderlaw attorneys, at this stage – but, the model could also potentially be adopted by firms in other practice areas.   Client maintenance programs are a spin on subscription services, where the client has access to included services, as well as regular updates to documentation.   For estate planning attorney s , that c ould include access to lawyers, updates to estate plans and document libraries .  Here's a useful article on how to build a client maintenance program, for an estate planning firm .  And, here’s how one law firm advertises such a program .     But, launching a version of a client maintenance program, in another practic...

There’s that really old saying that negates the value of hyperfocus, wherein some one person critiques another by saying that they ‘ can’t see the forest for the trees ’ .   Basically, it means that you can’t see the big picture .  And, of course, seeing ‘the big picture ’ , in the sense that you have a vision for your business , is important .  But, you can also get lost in the big picture, too.   Many attorneys, especially solo and small firm lawyers, get lost in the sauce – they can only see the forest, and becom e overwhelmed ; consequently , they are frozen , and ca n’t seem to take any positive action .  So, sometimes, it helps to look at just one, single tree .  In ter m s of a law firm’s business operations, that really means creating a project list, and focusing on just one project at a time .  That’s a great way to get unstuck, if you are – and, most business management philosophies strive to get business owners to concentrat...