Maine Law Practice Management

Law firms have a particularly hard time with lead intake.  It costs time and money to acquire leads in the first place, to the point where it’s devastating to whiff on those leads, once you have a chance to convert them.  Even when law firms effectively engage leads and are responsive in contacting them back, oftentimes they don’t say the right thing, and therefore fail in transitioning the lead to a client.     One of the chief reasons for that is that lawyers are unwilling to respond to what clients most want to know.  Because clients choose lawyers based not only on their general expertise, but also based on their specific expertise in particular niche practice areas, they want to know more about the legal process that effects their claim.     Only, lawyers are reticent to talk with leads about the legal process for a couple of reasons: (1) they’re worried about overstepping ethical bounds; and, (2) they’ve been taught not to ‘give away the farm’, ...

It’s a well-known fact that attorneys don’t spend enough effort staying in touch with clients and referral sources.  Updates are substantive and never personal.  Of course, that’s a problem -- because much of modern marketing is executing on an omnichannel plan, and staying relevant by staying in touch.     So, if your law firm is really bad about keeping in touch with clients and referrals sources, why not pretend like you just started your law firm?  Reannounce yourself to the world, then use that as the launching pad for a consistent marketing program.     So, what would you do if you were reopening a law firm, say , 10 years in?     Glad you asked; here are three options:     -Collect the fullest contact list you can (former and existing clients, referral sources and colleagues, friends and family), and send out an email about your practice.  Reorient people into what you do, and deliver a call to action.  What do ...

Remember that old Twilight Zone episode ?  ( It’s a cookbook! )     Well, this time, it’s not hungry aliens that are coming for us: it’s your server, and what it really wants is your wallet.     If you haven’t fully adopted cloud software, you’re likely storing your documents and email on a server.  But, there are a lot of associated costs for maintaining physical servers, like: the space they require, their need to be cooled, the electricity they suck up, the requirement to manage your own data backup and the frequent replacement cost.     But, when you are entirely cloud-based, you’re essentially renting server space from another entity (probably Amazon or Google, even if you’re using another vendor), and all those affiliated costs go away.  And, since the cloud is essentially eternal (at least so far as your lifespan is concerned) the replacement cost never accrues.  Instead, you pay monthly o r annual fees for the use of data storage containers.  If...