Way Outside: How to Rebuild Your Law Firm Practices

Attorneys seeking inspiration or advice on reconfiguring or revising their business practices often seek out colleagues or friends for advice.  Most attorneys maintain other attorneys as colleagues and friends.  So, when they’re seeking business advice, they’re getting it from other attorneys. 



There are a couple of problems with relying on that strategy, however.  The first is that law firm managers tend to rely entirely on their own experience.  If you ask them what to do in a specific situation, they will invariably say: ‘Well, this is how we do it . . .’  But, there is no one size fits all model for law firms, which means that lawyers should refer to various scenarios, before determining which option works best for them.  (And so, that’s a good conversation to have with a law practice management consultant *AHEM*, who regularly speaks to different law firms, to gauge their perspectives.)  The second problem with that strategy is that law firm owners are generally not business gurus.  When lawyers say that other attorneys are great lawyers, what they mean is that the referenced attorney is great at practicing substantive law.  But, how many attorneys do you know who are marketing gurus?  Or technology whizzes?  Exactly. 

 

That’s why it pays for lawyers to seek outside opinions when revamping their law firm practices.  Find somebody who is a marketing guru, or a tech whiz.  Many of those folks promote themselves online, and so offer a good deal of basic, free advice.  That’s a great place to get started.  It also helps to look at other industries for inspiration: 

 

A lawyer friend of mine was once revising his website, and he was looking for other law firm websites to base his redesign on; but, he told me they all sucked.  So, he set out to determine which set of professionals had the best websites.  He decided that it was architecture firms, and so built his law firm website to look like an architectural firm’s website; and, it was one of the most unique and resonant law firms websites I have ever seen. 

  

. . .   

   

Need a third party to take a look under the hood of your law firm?  We can help. 

Through a unique partnership between the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar and Jared Correia’s Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, Maine attorneys now have access to experienced law practice management consultants at a special discounted rate. 

To get started, visit Red Cave’s landing page for Maine attorneys, and start running your law practice like a business

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pay It Forward: How to Incentivize Attorneys and Staff Beyond Salary

Image
Many law firm owners are comfortable just paying out a salary .  And, that can work, for sure .  But, if you want to drive revenue within your law firm, it makes sense to look at bonusing attorneys and staff in ways that will incentivize your employees to generate or close more cases for the firm, which will lead to additional revenue. Obviously, this is a bit easier for attorney staff, since lawyers can share fees with each other, which makes it easier to create a direct incentive plan .  But, for staff , you can bonus them without sharing fees, including for converting clients from leads, for example, by doing things like offering a $50 bonus for each lead closed, potentially in a certain time frame .   This is the same method that lead generation services use to get paid by law firms, without sharing fees.     But, the place that law firm owners can really make money here is by using origination fees to bonus their attorney staff .  Law firms ...
Read more

Perfect Timing: New Calendaring Tools Make It Easy to Connect with Leads and Clients

Image
Lawyers tend to be inefficient, and have difficulty engaging both leads and clients.  These hurdles are apparent when it comes to the scheduling process.  Attorneys and staff onboard leads for meetings, and schedule appointments with existing clients, via strings of emails -- and, delayed response s only extend the conversation, and the time frame.  And, while this is detrimental for client s (who demand speed and convenience), it’s even worse for leads, who may never convert, if they’re not onboarded simply, and easily.   The good news is that modern technology tools allow for scheduling without the intervention of humans, including you and your staff.  That means that you can say goodbye to all those extra emails, and wasted time.  Programs like Calendly and Acuity allow clients to book appointments directly onto a law firm or lawyer’s calendar, and include buffers and controls, so users aren’t overwhelmed.  LawTap offers a similar tool focu...
Read more

Close Sesame: Three Things You Can Do To Improve Your System Security Right Know

Image
It’s 202 4 , and everybody is still kind of bad with passwords.  Many passwords, in fact, still contain the word . . . password .  That can’t be good.     However, there are three simple moves that you can make to ensure that your passwords are more impressive, and difficult to hack .  That will, in turn, better secure the systems that you are using passwords to protect – which, at this juncture , are pretty much all your systems.   Step one, is to generate stronger passwords .  You can try passphrases .  You can use a password management tool, that will generate more secure passwords for you, so you don’t have to .  And, you can ensure that you’re not using the same password across multiple programs, which is dangerous, because if one gets hacked – they all get hacked.     Step two, is to lean into password managers .  Not only can those systems generate strong passwords for you, you can also use these tools to mana...
Read more