Legal Tech Tips, 1221 GABJ, GSB Vol. 27, No. 3, Pg. 52
| Author | Nkoyo-Ene R. Effiong BY MIKE MONAHAN BY SHEILA BALDWIN BY MEGAN MURREN RITTLE BY KARLISE Y.GRIER |
| Position | Vol. 27 3 Pg. 52 |
Nkoyo-Ene R. Effiong
1 ReliaGuide Directory www.gabar.org/reliaguide
Have you seen the Need a Lawyer banner on the State Bar's homepage? It connects to a pretty neat member benefit that can help your ideal clients find you. Simply go to the member benefits and discounts section of the Bar website and find the ReliaGuide directory. Claim your profile and give potential clients another way to find your law practice online. If you get stuck, there are numerous resources available to help you put your best foot forward.
2Otter.ai otter.ai
Need more content for your website? A notetaking system for your video conferences, Otter.ai (and other transcription apps) can help you get ideas out of your head and onto paper quickly. With Otter.ai you can easily record your thoughts on your phone and download them. With the business plan, you can download straight to word or pdf. Viola! Connect Otter.ai to your virtual meeting platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet and Cisco Webex and to generate meeting notes in minutes.
3 Notion notion.so
Create your internal team wiki. Notion, the self-dubbed "all-in-one-workspace," allows you to centralize information for your whole team. This tool is useful for teams working remotely. Notion has a variety of templates and views to keep track of information. It's a great place to send your new hires to gain context and get up to speed. You can create a client-facing page that answers frequently asked questions. Easily bookmark websites, images and more. If you ever wanted to a general knowledge hub for your firm or clients, this is a great place to start.
4Client Portals
Communicate securely with a client portal. Client portals are a great tool for modern law firms that want to create accessibility with boundaries, maintain a record of communications and transmit sensitive information securely. Most law practice management software includes a client portal and are even improving the aesthetics to make it more enticing to use. If you have not switched over to client portals (or law practice management software in general) contact the law practice management program at lpm@gabar.org or 404-527-8770 to learn about the options and opportunities this tech provides.
5Atlanta Legal Tech Atlantalegaltech.com
What is that saying? Birds of a feather, flock together. If you want to stay up to date and in the know about how law professionals are leveraging technology, surround yourself with like-minded legal tekkies. ATL Legal Tech is an amazing community of legal professionals moving the legal profession forward one innovation at a time. They host an impactful summit, Reboot Your Firm, that not only shows you how you can move your firm forward but offers time and space for you to implement what you learn. This signature event returns January 2022.
6Townscraper play.google.com/store/apps
Need something to keep you or maybe the kids occupied during your holiday travels? Townscaper, available in Google Play, is a calm, digital playground for building landscapes.
7Guest Accessible Wi-Fi and Password
The holiday season usually means you'll be having guests over for parties or casual get-togethers. They may want to hop on your Wi-Fi and Instagram their pics of your party or start an online gathering for others who could not attend. Make it easy by displaying your Wi-Fi network and password so you're not answering the "what's your password?" question when you're trying to get the wine open or avoiding a turkey disaster. Tip: If you are having a large party that includes people you may not know well, change your Wi-Fi password after your guests leave.
8Add Holidays in Outlook
Ever thought of adding common holidays to your Outlook Calendar? With the holiday season upon us, you may find that you are having trouble keeping up with all of those dates in Outlook, not to mention other holidays throughout the year. Wouldn't it be nice if you could add holidays to your Outlook Calendar without having to trudge through each and every week click by click adding them? Follow these steps: In Outlook, click File, then Options, then Calendar, then Add Holidays and choose United States.
9Charitable Gift Giving
Many online retailers offer shoppers an opportunity to align their purchasing with their charitable interests. This holiday season, sign up where available (like Amazon) to have the retailer gift some portion of your total purchase to your favorite law-related charity—and that's in line with the Bar Rule 6.1, which encourages lawyers to financially support legal aid and pro bono programs.
10 Holiday Wellness Tips www.gabar.org/wellness
The holidays bring cheer—and stress. Take advantage of the State Bar's wellness resources at www.gabar.org/ wellness. If you're taking time off for the holidays, remember to take time off for just you—time for mindfulness, time for whatever your faith culture asks of you, time to rest.
Start 2022 With a Bang! Seven Things You Can Do Right Now to Start the New Year Strong
The Law Practice Management Program is here to help you run a profitable and purpose-filled law practice with less stress.
BY NKOYO-ENE R. EFFIONG
Imagine returning to work in January after a restful, work-free break to find your law practice running like a well-oiled machine. Your matters are in order. Your accounts are up to date. You have quality leads contacting your office and being added to your calendar for consultations. Your current clients are raving about your services. You feel refreshed and ready to hit the ground running.
Sounds like a fairy tale. Yet, with a bit of planning and preparation, that fairy tale can be a reality for you.
This new year presents numerous opportunities for you to build a law practice that you love. We want to help you do just that. Before you turn the page on 2021, we curated seven tips to help you start the new year strong. Read on to position yourself for success in 2022.
Reflect On Your Data
Healthy law practices make decisions based on facts, not [just] feelings. To gain a complete picture of how successful you were, you need to first define success for yourself and then determine what key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you gauge your progress to that success. KPIs provide targets for you to measure in all the critical areas of your law practice, from finances to marketing to business development and more. Not sure what KPIs you should track? Here are a few to get you started:
• Revenue.
• Budget expenses.
• Net promoter score (NPS).
• Client retention rate.
• Organic traffic to your website.
•Number of leads generated.
• Client conversion rates.
• Client acquisition costs.
• Number of new clients each month.
• Profit percentage.
• Accounts receivable over 30 days.
• Cash on hand.
• Realization rate (collected fees).
• Utilization rates.
Pull your data and reflect on your glows (strengths) and grows (areas for improvement). Not sure where to get this information, LPM can help you find intelligent tools that make it easier to find.
Celebrate Your Wins
Now that you have data reflect on what went well this year. Take a few minutes and list out all of your wins. No, really, make a list. If you did not celebrate your w ins when they happened, celebrate them now. Celebrating your wins generates a feeling that reinforces your success. Success begets success. If you are looking to attract more success (however you define it), you have to position yourself as a winner—not only to the public but, most notably, to yourself. What better way to be a winner than to celebrate your wins-big and small. Size does not matter. If you do nothing else, between now and the top of the year, celebrate your wins!
Closeout Old Matters
All good things must come to an end. So too should your old matters. If you resolved the legal issue defined in your engagement letter, it is time to organize the file and send a disengagement letter. Sending one does not mean clients cannot re-engage you in the future. Your disengagement letter can state just that. For your sake and theirs, however, you want to show that you resolved the matter successfully for them. Not only is this an excellent CYA record for you, it also helps clients achieve closure. This allows you to create a final touchpoint for you and your client to reflect on how the matter went. Your matter closing process might just open the door to a stellar review and a referral.
Need help drafting a disengagement letter? We have samples on the LPM website.
Get Your Accounts in Order._ Especially Your Trust Account
According to Clio's 2021 Legal Trends Report, only around half of solo attorneys, managing partners and senior partners are very confident about their knowledge of finances in their firms. If you are going to run a law practice with more ease and excitement, you have to know your numbers. Without your financial books in order, it is almost impossible to understand what services are growing or slowing your revenue, where to invest your time energy and money, or even when to bring on more staff. You need your financial data in real time. Up-to-date accounts are the key to business clarity.
Also, friendly reminder, you have an ethical duty to maintain your trust account. Failure to do so correctly could implicate your law license. Shudder. We do not want that. Up-to-date financial reports saves licenses (and hairlines). So, let's agree—we are keeping our operating and trust accounts in order in 2022.
If you have not reconciled all of your financial accounts yet, make a plan to get it done. Outsource it if you can. Then, let LPM help connect you to the right resource(s) to solve this problem once and for all.
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