Maine Law Practice Management

Law firms, especially big law firms, tend to rely on SEO to market their practices online.  The age-old question is: how do I get to Page One on Google?  The new problem is that Page One of Google is changing.     Leveraging search results has always been more of an art than a science; and, the picture is shifting again.  Google's algorithms and search results pages get tweaked from time to time, and it pays to monitor trends, which develop over time.  One current trend is the increasing exposure of paid advertising on the sought-after first page of Google search results.  Looking at a first page result now versus those same results, even as compared to a few years ago, yields a significant difference.  There are more paid advertising results (generally PPC) at the top of the page than ever before, and the prominence of those ads has been amplified.  Furthermore, map results are displayed directly below paid advertising, in a more prominent way than those results have pre v io...

Most lawyers view document automation as a time-saving device.  And, that's true: the efficiency wrought by document automation allows law firms to take on more work, and to make more money.  But, in the modern context, it may be that law firms are still underutilizing document automation.   As law firms seek to revise their payment structures in order to appeal to modern clients, some are opting to sell products, rather than (or more likely, in addition to), services.  Law firms have always sold personal services, which are high-touch, and costly.  But, modern consumers want cost certainty, in terms of total cost of representation -- and, some folks who want to access legal services want to manage that process themselves.  Traditionally, law firms had no way to reach, or capture revenue, from DIY clients.  With legal products, however, law firms can appeal to both DIY-focused and cost-sensitive legal consumers.  One obvious product law firms can sell are legal documents, sans the ...

Legal research options abound, more so than ever before.  This is in line with the general proliferation of law firm technology, buoyed by the rapid advancement of cloud technology for use in business.  But, with legal research, the challenge of finding the right products at the right rate structure is particularly important, because legal research is still a high - number budget line item for law firms.   Legal research is the life-blood of substantive work for so many attorneys that the systems they use for research just have to work.  But, no law firm has an unlimited budget.  And, if you try to research legal research tools on Google, or a lesser search engine, the results are often overwhelming, and only bring more confusion into the equation.  Ah, the irony drips.     To cut through the noise, check out the ‘ Legal Information Buyer’s Guide & Reference Manual ’ , which is updated annually, to get am organized, unbiased collection of leg...

Just because you want to be a modern lawyer, that doesn’t mean that you have to give up all of your paper .   For lawyers, the love of paper persists; it often hearkens back to a prior age of law practice.  In practice, it’s a tactile sensation.  Many lawyers just like to write on paper, to hold it.  A lot of attorneys still print files to review their work .   So, if going full electric make you uncomfortable, there is a middle ground.   Apps like LiveScribe allow you to  use smart pens and smart paper to capture traditional and nontraditional electronic notes via the traditional mechanism you still love.  Yes, it’s a real ink pen.  Yes, it’s real paper.  Sorry, fountain pens are unavailable.   But, otherwise -- it’s the best of both worlds .     I often tell attorneys that, if you can think of a workflow you need covered, there’s a technology tool out there for the job.       It turns out that so...

Phone systems, and managing phone systems, are essential for law firms -- even if managing lawyers can tend to overlook the importance of such things.  But, in a very real sense, law firm phone systems are really money machine s.  Getting a lead to the right person, transferring calls appropriately, accessing a message in a timely fashion, utilizing a system in which leads most often reach humans, even if those humans are part of a contracted virtual receptionist service . . . any or all of those attributes of a feature set and their application can increase your chances of converting a lead by degrees.  You can also utilize phone systems to keep existing clients happy, including by reducing the perceived layers of administration between lawyers and their customers.   As with most technology options that face modern attorneys, there are no easy choices.  Not only is a lawyer’s ethical competency now often tied to their ability to select and utilize appropriate...