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Archive for Practice Management

Memo to Partners …. Is Your Firm on “Speed”!

By on March 25, 2012

Everything we put our hands on today is built for speed, our iPhones, iPads, PC’s, notebooks, cars, TV’s … you name it. You can transfer money on-line, make purchases, look up an address on your GPS and so forth at the speed of light. Today’s technology provides speed, yesterday’s technology did not. The industrial revolution transformed society at the time due to speed, the ability to get things done faster and better. This post is about speed, not the drug, but the future of how law firms will internally function.

HOWEVER, when it comes to the internal processes with a law firm, we have anything but speed! Most internal processes are booth rooted back in the dark ages and designed by a committee. Why? Well, in most firms speed doesn’t seem to be very important. For example, try and quickly open a new file, most firms are still proud of their new matter memo that was designed of course by committee. Nothing speedy about it, enter the information into a Word document and email it to someone on the list. They’ll re-key it into a system. Conflict searching has incredible speed, the search engine is being referenced here, not the overall process which is highly inefficient.

Need to process a check request, get a day off work, get a new employee started, find a pleadings file folder, the next motion date, do or look for almost anything, it is REALLY SLOW. Why is everything else in our lives “on speed” except our firm?

Law firms need to completely rethink their processes, talk to your trusty vendors, ask them about speed. How can we speed up everything we do? Most vendors will be able to give you examples of other firms that are “on speed”, they have found much faster ways to do almost everything.

Why is speed important? It’s a basic business principle; especially known to law firms … time is money. Doing everything faster will get more done and make or save money. That’s what technology has done within our society. The next generation of software being introduced into your firm must help the firm get “on speed”.

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Management, Practice Management, Productivity, Technology

Stop the Attorney Time Entry Conundrum

By on January 8, 2012

There are multiple problems with getting attorneys to track and enter time on a daily basis. Let’s try and clearly identify the problem and see if we have some solutions.
 

  1. It’s not natural. We can demand and threaten all we want, but quite frankly, detailed time entry is not natural for a professional. How would all of us non-attorneys like to track every tiny task we do all day long, and enter it into a computer down to the tenth of an hour (.10)? You have to be kidding right? Let’s see a show of hands, just as I thought, no hands are in the air.
  2. It’s a form of micro-management. I want to practice law, solve problems, compete like an athlete, and detailed time entry is the client’s form of micro-managing every little thing I do.
  3. It’s not convenient. Stop what you are doing, enter the time, start back up again and switch to work on another matter. This is a painful process, almost as painful as just working all day (week?) and then trying to parcel together all the (hundreds?) of time entries for the day. Let’s see, it’s 5PM and I need to recreate my time for today, did I talk to that client for 6 minutes, or was it closer to 12 minutes, I’ll enter .20 hours (12 minutes).
  4. Out of the office … too bad. I’m off-site doing depositions and meeting with my client, detailed time entry isn’t very easy. It’s a big case and I’ll be doing this for the next few days. I’ll just enter in 8 hours and call it “depositions and meeting with client”, nope can’t do that, the carrier won’t pay they want “micro-management detail”.

 We could of course go on and on about the “issues”, now let’s talk about how to improve the process and profitability.
 Improving Time Entry:

  1. Admit it’s a Pain. The first step to get attorneys on board with the time entry process is to admit that all of the “issues” above are true and painful. No attorney enjoys entering time. Make sure the attorneys know that you know this and are prepared to mitigate the pain as much as possible.
  2. The Real Reason for Time Entry, it’s the Job. When you want to charge clients $250 – $1,000/hour, with few restrictions or limits they want detail for every moment of your time. If you don’t like this level of scrutiny find a new job, many others have. Just accept this as a way of life, the life you’ve chosen.
  3. The Firm will Help. Firms are smart to individually help attorneys with time entry. Senior attorneys and partners may have secretaries to help them, we assume their billing rates are high enough to easily afford the labor costs. Time entry software isn’t always easy, take extra time to train attorneys, be patient, show them short-cuts after they learn the basic program. Provide attorneys the option of using a web time entry product or a mobile app to assist when not in the office.
  4. New “Found Time” Tools. Utilize the latest tools that track the attorney’s entire day on a task by task basis, then easily turns them into otherwise missing time.
  5. Send it off-Shore. That’s right, if time entry is just going to be a problem and expensive attorneys and staff struggle with it, take a look at off-shore time entry. Scan old-fashion paper sheets and let someone else do it.

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Management, Practice Management, Productivity

What is Your “Rate of Change”?

By on October 30, 2011

 Jack Welsh, the former Chairman and CEO of General Electric once said:

 “When the rate of change inside the institution is less than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight.”

  It reminded me how hard it is for a law firm to make changes, especially in the areas of finance and practice management. The claim is that law firms have been trailing behind corporate America for many years in such areas as; innovative use of technology, development of business and marketing plans, and communications with clients, and now Alternative Fee Arrangements. Many times it is frustrating to see firms hang onto the status quo for no good reason. Why is this?

  One reason might be that firms don’t have a “Vice President of Change”.  Successful corporations all have these people, many times there is on-going competition among the up and comers as to who is the best or most compelling Vice President of Change. You can probably guess, of course, where I’m going with this …. there really isn’t anyone with this actual title. The Vice President of Change is the brave soul who is willing to risk rejection, humiliation and being labeled as “not understanding” by just trying to improve the way things have always been done.  

  Law firms don’t control the rate of change on the outside; they can however embrace a Vice President of Change internally. Encourage attorneys and staff to be creative and propose changes that will benefit the firm. Let them know that the Vice President of Change is a welcome position.

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Categories: AFA - alternative fee arrangement, Best Practices, Financial Management, Management, Practice Management

Information Overload – Email Organization 101

By on June 14, 2011

I’ll admit it, I get in upwards of 100 emails per day, and they are often in the form of a string of conversations. Email is a way to save time, but is your Inbox getting the best of you? Microsoft Outlook gives users a variety of tools, such as folders, flags, and priority to organize the plethora of emails we receive each day, however, how many of us actually use the tools available to us and which ones are worth setting up? Maybe I’m behind the times; maybe everyone uses Microsoft Outlook best practices, but it seems to me when I get a peek at people’s Inboxes, I see either a gazillion emails, a gazillion folders and/or no organization at all.

I’ve been using Microsoft Outlook for some time now, and although I don’t profess to be a Guru, I do think I have a good grasp on organizing the Inbox so emails are accessible and intuitively dispersed. The following are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way. Please keep in mind that these tips are for standalone versions of Microsoft Outlook 2007 or higher.

  1. The folder system seems to be the best way to organize emails (as opposed to using different color flags), but how you set them up really depends on your industry. A law firm would organize emails very differently from, say, a software company, e.g., folders grouped by client vs. by client helpdesk number.
  2. Subfolders are okay to use where they make absolute sense, otherwise forgo them. Folders should be intuitive and finding information should be simple. When you have folders, mixed with subfolders, the information is further buried. Sometimes over-organizing can get the best of us. Think about what’s going to work when you look for “that email from Suzie Soandso” 12 months from now.
  3. I don’t know about you, but when I have too many emails in my Inbox, I get Inbox anxiety. I read article years ago about closing one’s Inbox during the day to get work done. I just don’t think this is feasible anymore. Email is the primary form of business communication and to close the Inbox would just make me get behind. So, with that said, the constant stream of email can be contained using common sense. I try to deal with emails right away or pass them along to someone who can. If I cannot, I flag it until it can be dealt with. Once I respond, the email is either filed or deleted – very simple.
  4. SPAM is an Inbox reality, too. If you have a good anti-SPAM system, you are in luck, but there is always the one or two that slip through. Honestly, I try to never use my business email when I sign up for outside information, etc. I actually have a generic email address set up for this. This is not to say I don’t sign up for newsletters or special offers on my real email account; I just try to keep the junk at bay. If you are receiving a lot of junk emails via your real email account, the best thing to do is enable junk and email filters or, simply, unsubscribe.

As always, please feel free to share your Outlook best practices and good luck in your organization endeavors!

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Categories: Best Practices, Legal Marketing, Practice Management, Productivity, Technology, The Legal Market

It might be unintentional …. and still cost your firm $1,000,000

By on June 1, 2011

A billing attorney runs a SDN search in Conflicts and although it appeared as though the client’s name is OK, and proceeds to open a matter. However, when opening a matter, very little might be known about a client and as the matter unfolds more complexities enter the picture. Firms are now dealing in a global economy, what appears to be straightforward, may not be.

 Is the firm safe from the $1,000,000 unintentional representation of a SDN terrorist person or organization? I don’t know the answer to this, risk is sometimes very difficult to assess.

 The question here is a matter of best practices, to at least manage the risks. I suspect there are many firms that do not even conduct SDN searches. There are no guarantees, but a million dollars is a lot of money.

 What are your law firms “best practices” and how often do you run a SDN search AFTER a matter is open?

 Post your comments on my blog on how your firm manages this potential risk and I’ll publish the results on a future blog posting.

 To learn more details on OFAC and the SDN list check out some of my previous blog postings on the topic.

Check here

and here

and here

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Practice Management, Technology

Treasury ….. we have a problem

By on May 30, 2011

Who can forget that memorable moment when John Swigert first said “Houston … we’ve had a problem”. This normally gets attributed to James Lovell, who repeated it and the movie that slightly modified it. The fact was that Apollo 13, the seventh manned mission in the Apollo space program, had to abort their moon landing after an oxygen tank exploded, severely damaging the spacecraft’s electrical system. We all watched as they barely made it back to earth.

 A similar call, although of an entirely different magnitude, recently went out by a law firm to the US Treasury Department regarding a potential SDN problem. At a RainMaker client’s firm, a billing attorney ran a SDN search in Conflicts and although it wasn’t a direct “hit” was concerned that $1,000,000 fine for unintentionally dealing with a terrorist organization was enough to exercise caution. The attorney called the OFAC Hotline and asked for guidance, it appeared as though the client’s name was OK, but then again there was no guarantee, and a million dollars is a lot of money. OFAC gave the attorney the terrorist’s date of birth and suggested they get the client’s DOB, country of citizenship, and a copy of his passport to verify both. The client was not a terrorist and everything was OK.

 So, what’s the message …. you just can’t be too sure and this attorney was smart enough to take the extra steps to insure the firm wasn’t going to represent, unintentionally, a terrorist.

 To learn more details on OFAC and the SDN list check out some of my previous blog postings on the topic.

http://www.jimhammondblog.com/2010/if-one-of-these-is-your-client-%e2%80%93-you-might-have-a-problem/

http://www.jimhammondblog.com/2010/conflict-searching-technology-for-the-sdn-list/

How many firms have been actually fined for SDN violations? I did a Google search (334,000 results) and it turns up a lot of warnings but I couldn’t find any example of actual violations or fines for law firms.

Do you know of any firm who has actually been fined, if so let me know.

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Practice Management, Uncategorized

Rent vs. Buy – The SaaS Decision – part 2

By on March 13, 2011

Some people, me included, have always been “buy” type people, maybe it’s just old fashion. We buy, we just don’t like to rent or even borrow most things. Many businesses face the same decision as they review their options for implementing internal software. There are compelling reasons for both software models, in-house licensing and cloud based SaaS.

 In my previous blog posting I covered SaaS benefits; here are a few of my thoughts on traditional in-house software licensing.

 In-house traditional software.

  1. In most cases today, full enterprise level software, especially utilizing database management like financial management systems are best kept in-house. Primarily because there are not any viable SaaS options for mid-large size firms. In addition, firms need tight integrations among many other software systems that are already in-house.
  2.  There is a big difference in processor and memory requirements for enterprise financial management systems vs. other applications like document management. Hosting a DM system off-site is more about file storage sizing and access. In general, lower transactional processing applications not involving complex data structures are fine in a SaaS environment. The economies of SaaS disappear quickly when a large amount of computing power is needed for multiple users.
  3. I’m always concerned about the ease and control of data retrieval. In some SaaS applications it is quite easy to export out all of your data, in case, for example, you’d like to move to a different arrangement. However, with more complex applications where large amounts of data are stored in equally complex databases, extracting it from a “multi-tenant system is a real issue.
  4. The SaaS world is built, for the most part around a “multi-tenant” software model. Your data is actually mixed in with everyone else’s data and the application knows how to get it out. But you can’t. If you had an in-house financial management system and wanted to change vendors, you could conceivable extract the data yourself (or hire a consultant) and move to a new system without notifying your existing vendor until you thought it was proper. However, in a SaaS system, you don’t have a lot of choice. You are at the mercy of your SaaS provider. I’m always concerned about the uncertainty and costs of asking a SaaS provider for help converting to another system.
  5. I have a little bit of experience with the above issue of moving data from a SaaS vendor. In 2010 we decided to leave our long time, big name, on-line CRM system for an in-house Microsoft Dynamics CRM system. So we just called up the big name SaaS provider, explained our intentions and asked for help extracting millions of entries from the last 10 years or so from their system. It was amazing how little help they were and how crude their extraction tools were, if you wanted to leave their system. Of course, we had to licenses some SaaS type extraction tools just to do the all the work ourselves.
  6. Many times, the costs for SaaS only look attractive in the short-term. I recently saw some pricing for a legal market SaaS offering for a “practice management” system. On the surface it looked attractive, then I calculated the total cost of ownership over say, a 8-10 year lifecycle with 100 users and I was astounded. It no longer looked like a bargain at all. Some analysis indicates that SaaS pricing is based on a 28 – 36 month amortization of what an in-house enterprise software license would likely cost. If you keep it for 10 years you may end up paying 3-4 times as much money.
  7. The sales pitch for SaaS often includes the; you don’t need hardware, you don’t need to manage the system, and other similar claims to help justify the pricing model. The fact is that, most mid-large size law firms need to maintain a full IT infrastructure of networks, servers and desktops anyhow. The extra burden and costs of adding one or more virtual servers to this infrastructure may not be a big deal.

 At the end of the day there are all business decisions and for each decision the buyer needs to ask, am I a “renter or a buyer”?

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Practice Management, Technology

Rent vs. Buy – The SaaS Decision – part 1

By on March 6, 2011

Some people, me included, have always been “buy” type people, maybe it’s just old fashion. We buy things, we just don’t like to rent or even borrow. Many businesses face the same decision as they review their options for implementing internal software. There are compelling reasons for both software models, in-house licensing and cloud based SaaS. Here are a few of my thoughts.

In the SaaS Camp:

  1. Cloud based SaaS applications look particularly attractive when they are “specialty” type products that are not “enterprise” level of usage. For example, we use such products as ExactTarget for email marketing and SurveyMonkey™ for client surveys. These are highly specialized services, used infrequently, and not worth the costs to bring in-house and manage. SaaS is the obvious choice.
  2.  In the example above, the amount of data and confidentially of that data is not of utmost concern. Confidentiality is important in this case but not to the extent that we don’t want the information outside our facilities.
  3. Another issue is getting data back, if we needed it. I’m not too concerned that the data we store on these sites within their applications is so crucial to our business that we would be damaged if we couldn’t easily retrieve it.
  4. Costs may be a major benefit in the SaaS camp, depending on the type of application needed. The convenience and small cost of a monthly fee on a credit card is a definite convenience.
  5. We use Chrome River for on-line expense reporting. The justification in this case is that, it is a “best of breed” specialty product, attractively priced, used somewhat infrequently and other than manual spreadsheets we didn’t have a better way of managing this process. An easy decision.

 As you can see there are some real benefits to having the right SaaS tools. In my next blog posting I’ll cover why I think in-house enterprise software looks good.

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Practice Management, Productivity, Technology

Streamline your Way to Bigger Margins #6:“Business Development – How to further target your market in 2011”

By on February 15, 2011

Throughout my many years being in business, I have observed a New Year trend. Businesses kick-off the year with plans of grandeur; they conduct sales meetings, resolve to do things differently, and vow to be the conduit of change for the better. Some new ideas fly and others fail. This is especially true in the area of marketing.  Over the past four or five years, we have been very cognizant of the need to hone in on our target market for many reasons. One of the main benefits is the overall cost savings and more succinct marketing efforts.

Knowing your target audience; their questions, concerns, wants and needs enables firms to hone in their benefit statements and anticipate for future planning.  Below are some ways to further get to know your target market in 2011 and beyond.

  1. You may know your target market, but you may not know what makes them tick.
    Many of us may know who we are marketing to as a whole, but we are unsure of what their pain points are. How can one get this information?
  • Surveys are a good way to garner much needed information. Post them on your website, add them to an e-newsletter or survey using a telemarketing group.
  • Stay on top of research studies online. Many groups, especially those who hone in on particular niches and offer free information, conduct annual surveys. These surveys offer invaluable information about your particular demographic; what they are looking to accomplish in the coming year and mostly what makes them tick.
  • Tap into social media to learn more about your target market. Two particular options, NetBase and Nielsen Buzz Metrics, offer great social media intelligence if you’re willing to pay for it.
  • In addition to social media intelligence, Forrester offers a demographic profiling tool to measure online social behavior by your target audience. This helps you to gauge future campaigns and mediums used to capture their attention.
  1. You don’t have your target market down to a science.
    So you may know the particular focus of your firm, but you don’t know “who’s who” for every single opportunity in your target markets. How can one garner this information, it can be time consuming yet highly valuable.

    • There’s always Hoovers. Hoovers is kind of the crib notes of research. For a modest service fee, you can look up contacts at businesses and find your target demographic. This tool is really best suited for those who are already very familiar with their target but lack the contact names, titles and demographics.
    • Search for industry /people stats online. A simple Google search can often turn up more prospects than you bargained for.
    • Again, use a telemarketing group/survey. At least you can count on the information gathered when it’s coming directly from the source.
    • Buy lists (from sites like Hoovers) and have someone qualify prospects via call or email.
    • Your goals is to maintain a database of every single opportunity in your target market, with a full list of key contacts.

Here are a few other places you can find market information:

As always, please feel free to share your target market best practices via comments.

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Categories: Best Practices, Legal Marketing, Practice Management, Productivity, Technology, The Legal Market

Will Microsoft Surface 2.0 Surface in the Courtroom – Touch screen gets updated

By on February 6, 2011

Forbes.com recently featured an article on the 2011 CES Show and up and coming technologies. The article sparked my interest; namely the part about the Samsung SUR40  for Microsoft® Surface 2.0, the brainchild of the Microsoft organization. For some time now, we’ve heard rumors about “tables that would take our orders” and “touch screen firmware” but it all seemed so Jetson-ish. Although Microsoft Surface was released in 2007, as aforementioned it was a large and lacked all of the web 2.0 features. 

Although the application is still a little clunky right now, it is supposed to be good to go for its “official” launch later this year. Aesthetically, the interface and hardware has a 4-inch profile that can be placed against a wall, held up by legs, or embedded in furniture, with a 40-inch 1920 x 1080 crisp gorilla glass display. This compared to the original design that was thicker and less durable. Think huge ThinkPad on steroids.  Microsoft Surface 2.0 is powered by a dual-core CPU and an AMD GPU and runs on Windows 7.

Supposedly, the Surface is all-knowing and can detect the lightest of touches. The Microsoft site features case studies that illustrate where this super cool tool can be, and is being, used. Some examples are a tourism bureau where maps and destinations can be touched and further investigated, The Rio Hotel in Vegas where customers can design and order cocktails from the large interface and chat with other clients across the bar and Microsoft itself to demo software.

Many professional service firms have purchased the firmware at a hefty price of around $7,600 (cheaper than the original at $12,500). Law firms can utilize the tool to collaborate, show docs, etc. to clients and use the whiz bang applications to “wow” future clients. I’m sure there are dozens more uses for a firm…

In addition, applications are being developed for this tool all the time. Leap frog technologies are jumping on board to help professional service firms collaborate and make decisions faster. These apps are arranged in a sift-able row or rotate 180 degrees for someone on the opposite side. Some new apps include, Bing (for image search, maps and local), and a new video app.

Is this something your firm has explored? Will we be seeing it in courtrooms?


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Categories: Practice Management, Productivity, Technology, The Legal Market
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