The Latest
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5 Simple Time Saver Moves That Work for Law Offices
Law offices are busy places. There’s always more to do, tight deadlines, and wondering how you’re going to get it all done. There are a lot of time saver tips available online. Yet, there are some that aren’t helpful because they take more time to implement and learn to use than the original task. In this post, we’re focusing on simple tips that you can easily work into your routine to improve your efficiency.
Use Templates for Standard Documents
Consider the documents you use on a regular basis. Do you (or a support staff member) type them from start to finish? Our first time saver tip is using templates for standard documents. Create a template from an older document to make the document creation process faster. Remember to remove all personal information from the template. Microsoft Office has a great walk-through for template creation.
Automate What You Can
Legal tech is the world’s best time saver for lawyers. Determine the areas that take up the largest portion of your time (outside of giving legal advice to clients and appearing in court!). Technology is meant to be a tool, but it only works if you choose the right solutions and use them.
Case practice management software can be used to automatically deliver invoices, provide documents, and help with client intake. Chatbots can be used to provide basic information (such as office hours), answer basic questions, and also help with client intake. They can also be programmed to complete basic forms for you. For example, LawDroid, which can be accessed via Facebook Messenger, can be used by consumers to fill out LLC forms. The process takes about 10 times for the consumer.
Keep Control of Your Schedule
It’s important that lawyers stay in control of their schedule. Even if someone else is in control of your calendar, it’s important that you review your schedule so that you know what’s expected of you. You’ll also be able to better prepare for meetings and know if a deadline is sneaking up on you. Proper calendar management is a time saver because you’re able to know where your time is being spent and if you’re being double booked. Don’t take on more than you can reasonably manage. Make liberal use of your support staff where you can.
Create Time for Deep Work
One of the best time savers for lawyers is to create time on your schedule for deep work. Deep work means that you’re eliminating distractions and spending that block of time working on a specific project. Consider scheduling your deep work time for the period of the day where you’re most energetic. Take a few days to really pay attention to your energy level during the day. Write down the times when you have the most energy and the times when you have the least energy. This becomes a time saver because you can establish the best times for you to work on projects that need your focus. You can use the other time for smaller, less intense projects.
Work Just Six More Minutes Each Day
Consider the number of hours you currently work and bill. If you add six minutes to your work day, you have an extra 23 billable hours each year! It’s an easy (and doable!) tip to help you create more billable time during the year!
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Business Development for Lawyers: Can Legal Tech Help?
Lawyers spend a lot of time improving their ability to deliver legal services to their clients. But business development for lawyers? Not always a priority. When you’re running your own law office, how can you make time to improve the business side of things?
Why Is Business Development Hard for Solo Lawyers?
Business development for lawyers is difficult because when you have your own law office, you’re wearing all the hats. You’re overseeing not just client services. You’re also planning and implementing marketing plans, management plans, and still carving out time for your personal obligations. Business development is hard for solo lawyers because we can’t make more time in a day.
Legal Tech Is a Beneficial Tool to Improve the Business Side of Law
If you had to change a flat tire while you were on the side of the road, you’d either need to call someone and wait for them to arrive or you’d hopefully have the right tools for the job so that you could just take care of business and get on with your day. Business development for lawyers requires the right tools. Legal tech can help lawyers continue down the DIY of business management and avoid the expense of consultants and business management staff.
Getting Started with Legal Tech
Getting started with legal tech is often the most difficult part. With so many options, how do you know what to choose? After all, there’s a legal tech solution for practically everything related to the business side of law (and even on the side of legal service delivery).
Start by creating a list of areas in your business that you think could improve. Try to choose at least ten potential areas. Common areas you might consider include:
- Determining if a lead you received is a good lead
- Your client intake process
- Improving (and using!) engagement letters
- Paying law firm expenses
- Staying on top of billing your time and invoices
- Improving the appointment scheduling experience
- Providing updates to clients on their legal matters
Once you’ve created your list, it’s time to prioritize what should be addressed first. You can do this by using a scale from one to ten, with ten being the most frustrating issue you deal with. This will help you narrow down your legal tech options.
After you’ve decided where to start, ask your colleagues or friends which legal tech solutions they use to address that sort of issue. This will give you a good starting point in creating a list of potential solutions so that you can review their features and choose the solution that best meets your needs.
Learn More
To learn more about legal tech and business development for lawyers, check out these resources:
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Teleconference: Stephen Zetzer, “Law Firm Cybersecurity”
As CEO of the cybersecurity company eWranglers, Steve Zetzer discusses the most cyber-secure mobile devices, password protection options, the limits of cybersecurity risk aversion, and the concept of Cyber Hygiene, among other topics.
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Best Simple Legal Tech Tips for Lawyers
Legal tech is a quickly growing field. With so many choices, how do you know which solutions work best for your needs? If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed over the vastness of options, you’re not alone. Here are some of the best legal tech tips from Catherine Sanders Reach, Director of Law Practice Management & Technology with the Chicago Bar Association. You can find all of Catherine’s tips here in a webinar or in a downloadable PDF. We’ve selected the tips below because of their ease of implementation. You may find that choosing easy to work with legal tech first will help you make the transition easier for your entire office.
Start by Using a Familiar MS-Office Program: Word!
One of the best legal tech tips out there is to start with something you know: MS-Word. While it’s not something designed just for law office use, you can still use it to make your life easier. You can change autocorrect in Word to add certain words or phrases as you type. Catherine’s presentation and handout uses an excellent example: changing autocorrect to type “Family Medical Leave Act” when you type the acronym. You can find a walk-through for using autocorrect in this way in Catherine’s handout.
Use a Plug-In to Improve Your Legal Documents
Intelligent Editing is a plug-in for Word. With their Legal Checking package, you can define the style rules that should be followed (including terms, capitalization, citations, word choice errors, and checks for consistency in your writing). It’s an easy way for you to get your feet wet with a tool specifically made for the legal industry while using a program you understand.
Bookmark All Tabs in Chrome
If you do a lot of research, you know the pain of having multiple tabs open just to have them disappear if Chrome crashes or your computer stops working. Did you know that you can create a bookmark of all the tabs you have open? You don’t have to do this one by one, either, just right click on any open tab and choose the option that reads “Bookmark all tabs.” If you prefer using the keyboard, that’s Ctrl-Shift-D. Just remember that organization is key when you tend to bookmark a lot of sites!
Simple Email Encryption
A lot of legal tech choices that allow you to communicate with clients, potential clients, and others comes with encrypted email. If you’re not quite ready to switch or you want to keep using your Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook email, there’s a simple way for you to protect your email. The program is called Virtru. In addition to encryption, it also allows you revoke sent messages, restrict whether a message may be forwarded, and set emails and files to auto-delete. Virtru also identifies sensitive information and encrypts the message or gives you a warning that the information is in the email.
Online Appointment Setting
Another great legal tech tip that’s simple for you to try is enabling your clients and potential clients to set appointments with your law firm online. Using SetMore, you can have unlimited appointments, unlimited clients, and up to 20 staff members for which you can set and manage appointments. It can be embedded into your website, blog, social media page, or your mobile app. Clients can also reschedule or cancel their appointments.
Use a Mobile VPN
If you’re on the go and use a lot of free wi-fi hotspots, you could be putting your client data, banking data, and personal data at risk. Free hotspots are often unsecured. You can create and use a virtual private network (VPN) to use while you’re on the go. Many of the programs that allow you to do this are extremely cost-efficient. There are even free VPN apps, but they often have ads and run much slower than one you may pay just a few dollars a month to use.
There are a lot more tips in Catherine’s webinar and downloadable PDF! We’ve only chosen some that are quick and easy for you to implement. Make sure that you check out all of her legal tech tips!
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If You Have a Virtual Law Practice, You Need a Chatbot
A virtual law practice provides more freedom with how you use your time. A virtual law practice enables lawyers to rely on various forms of technology to work out of the comfort of their own space. One of the main highlights of choosing a virtual law practice (aside from the previous mention of having more freedom in how you use your time) is in the increase of productivity. There are fewer interruptions by co-workers. You can control when you schedule calls and meetings. You can choose when and where you conduct business. A chatbot can make virtual law practices even more productive.
What Is a Chatbot?
By definition, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates conversation with human users. Primarily, they’re used through Internet websites. However, there are several chatbots that also work on social media platforms. One example is Facebook. Some chatbots integrate with Facebook messenger and allow people to ask questions. The chatbot will respond with preloaded responses. It reduces the amount of time that potential and current clients wait for a response.
How Using Bots Help Virtual Law Practices
Chatbots aren’t designed to replace lawyers. They’re designed to help lawyers save time while making potential clients feel as if they’re instantly connected to the answers they need. Consider the amount of time you could spend answering questions for someone via email, private messenger, or live chat. Using bots, virtual law practices can answer basic questions such as tenant rights, the divorce process in your state, and even help with client intake by recording answers to intake questions.
Chatbots Don’t Have to Be Complicated
There are two common misconceptions about chatbots and how they will (or won’t) work with any sort of law practice. The first misconception is that this sort of legal tech is meant to get rid of lawyers. That’s simply not true. Chatbots are meant to help lawyers better control their time (and the time of their support staff).
The second misconception is that chatbots are complicated. Chatbots can be as simple as you want it to be. You can start by using one that only gives out office hours (or live chat hours) and contact information. You could use one to screen potential clients or answer basic legal questions that you receive on a regular basis. If you are more technologically adventurous, you have a chatbot take on more prolific tasks. Here are some examples:
- Joshua Browder created DoNotPay, a bot that took on 250,000 traffic ticket cases and won 160,000 of them. It’s believed that since 2014, DoNotPay saved drivers around $4 million in fines. The service also helps travelers get refunds on their flights when the price of a ticket drops. What a great use of legal technology! What could your virtual law practice do to serve the community using bots?
- LawDroid, created by Tom Martin, uses Facebook messenger and can help entrepreneurs incorporate their business without a fee.
- In the UK, Robot Lawyer Lisa helps entrepreneurs develop NDAs for free.
Think about how using bots could specifically save your virtual law practice time. Then, weigh your options!
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Solo, You Are a Micromanager!
by Dina Eisenberg
If you do everything in your law practice because you believe that nobody can do it better and others will just waste your time and money, guess what? You are a micromanager, Solo!
It seems funny to say that solo lawyers can also be micromanagers when you don’t have team. Yet, it’s true. Because you refuse to delegate you are vulnerable to making the same mistakes that a small firm lawyer would make when it comes to outsourcing.
Whether you are a solo lawyer or a small firm lawyer, you suffer the same bad results when you micromanage: poor work experiences, lower quality work, stress and burnout. Let’s look at micromanaging a little closer.
What is micromanaging?
Micromanaging is a management style where you have excessive control over every detail and aspect of the project without regard to the impact on others or yourself.
You know exactly what it feels like to be micromanaged if you’ve worked for anyone else for any length of times. It sucks.
Signs that you are a micromanager
You need a truthful mirror to reflect to you things that are true but not necessarily seen by you. That’s the kind of clarity I offer to my private clients.
There are signs that you micromanage that you might not see in yourself. Check this list out. You are a micromanager if you…
- Have a hard time asking for help
- Check in frequently to see if the work is being done/done your way
- Monitor every detail, even the smallest ones
- Believe that no one can produce what you can
- Don’t take advice or suggestions from others
- Make all the decisions involved in the project
- Believe that others will waste time or money
What micromanaging says about you
There are so many jokes and war stories about micromanagers. That’s kinda sad. People see micromanagers as difficult to work with, disrespectful and rude.
While some micromanagers like being characterized as ‘particular’, it really is a bad look, especially if you want to grow your law firm. You tell the world these things when you refuse to delegate effectively…
- You lack trust in yourself
- You lack trust in others
- You fear mistakes
- You fear being judged
- You lack the ability to see talent in others
- You lack emotional intelligence
Harvard Business Review reports that collaboration and soft skills are the key skills to possess if you want to future-proof your business. That seems especially true for lawyers as the profession adjusts to new market conditions and demands from clients for more efficiency.
How do you stop micromanaging?
How do you stop micromanaging?
First, realize that you didn’t develop this habit overnight or for no good reason. You won’t lose it without a fight or over the weekend. It will take consistent attention and effort to reshape your thinking and behaviors. Be patient with yourself.
Second, get a coach. You need guidance and feedback. You can’t properly hear what you sound like so you need a truthful mirror to reflect to you and show you where to change. I’d be happy to help you
Third, practice delegation. Delegate more. Start small. Recognize that you and your help have a shared goal: doing the best work possible.
Fourth, shift your mindset from managing to leading. Managers control things. Leaders inspire action, collaboration, and commitment. Leaders focus on the positive, not the negatives.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity- George Patton
Are you a micromanager? No worries if you are. You can grow out of it and have a happier, less stressful work life with guidance and a little work on your emotional intelligence.
For more information and friendly guidance, connect with Dina Eisenberg at https://OutsourceEasier.com