Law Practice Management Tips and Tricks

• Publication year: 2019
• Pages: 28

Law Practice Management Tips and Tricks No. 88 J. Kan. Bar Assn 4, 28 (2019) Kansas Bar Journal April, 2019

Budgeting, Saving, and Investing Apps

by Larry Zimmerman

Questionable financial decisions by lawyers in their practices continue to pop up as a regular theme in ethics cases. While the misuse of client money is the violation-'that leads to discipline, a deeper dive into most of the cases indicates that financial problems for a firm often began as financial problems in the lawyer's personal life. Learning how to budget, save and invest wisely in our personal lives is a skill set that very often translates directly into our professional lives.

Additionally, almost every lawyer has an experience with a client, a colleague or a close friend where conversation on budgeting can be crucial. For example, I observed expungement hearings in 2018, and the petitioner in every hearing had sought relief from the filing fees for financial hardship. Amazingly, not one single petitioner knew their income or expenses on a monthly basis. The lawyers who had helped them with the expungement pleadings had apparently overlooked the budget component of the petitions they had helped to prepare.

The widespread presence of smart phones has put powerful budgeting, savings and investing tools close at hand, and younger users especially are drawn to tools that can turn everyday acts into opportunities to adapt habits, save money and invest for the future. The following apps are just a few of the options available.

Albert

"Albert analyzes all of your financial accounts and builds a unique plan based on your income, spending habits, and goals." After downloading the app and connecting your financial accounts, the app assists in establishing a budget, savings and investing goals. As the app observes income and spending habits, the artificial intelligence back-end starts to recommend areas to save and can even scrape extra funds into an FDIC-insured, interest-bearing account. The app also provides spending alerts to warn when money is getting tight or flag expenses that are higher than normal. Users note significantly improved odds of maintaining a budget using the app and often credit the app to unexpected growth in their savings account. The app is free, but an optional monthly subscription to a financial help line service (Albert Genius) for $4-6 per month supports the product.

Acorns

Acorns is, "The only micro-investing account that...