Don't forget to stop by Blog For Profit where we are discussing all things about blogging to market and promote your professional service firm. In addition, we discuss using social media tools such as twitter too.
Also don't forget to subscribe to the Blog For Profit Newsletter. We include information in the newsletter we don't feature here on the blog. And when you subscribe, you get a free copy of our eBook , Blogging Tips to Help You Blog.
I have been writing an ongoing series over at Blog For Profit called Building a Successful Blog. If you are struggling with getting a blog up and going. Or you are thinking about blogging, I would encourage you to read the series.
And don't be afraid to ask questions in the comments of the post in the series. I always read them and answer them too.
You more likely than not, have heard of Jay Fleischman. Jay is my friend and a consumer bankruptcy attorney who helps other lawyers market, manage and grow their practices.
What I like about how Jay does what he does is that he is really cutting edge and unusual, but totally ethical and honest.
Jay just shot this video and I know you are going to be interested in seeing it. You can view the video here.
I have seen what Jay has been working on first hand, and I can say what he's got behind the scenes is just incredible. Make sure you jump to the font of line on this. Jay already has 578 people waiting to jump on board for the few spots he is making available.
Watch the video and you can make your own mind up if this is truly an amazing opportunity for you to take advantage of. Oh, and you don't have to be a bankruptcy lawyer to profit from what Jay's putting together.
Michael and I have been working feverishly behind the scenes on content, editing audio, and creating screencasts. We can't wait to let you in so you can see it and start your "blawging" education. We can't wait to see you in the community support forums so we can say hello and answer questions for you. And we really can't wait to see you gaining clients and growing your practice because of what you learn in Blawging Lawyers.
Michael and I wanted to provide an overview of what the members of Blawyging Lawyers can expect. We have a lot of great material in store for the members which will help them market their law practice effectively through blogging, social media and beyond.
Blawging Lawyers features content that is released "automagically" according to a scheduled lesson plan, just like a "real" curriculum in a "real" school.
Each member of Blawging Lawyers receives the content according to the lesson plan. As each new member joins, the timetable begins for that person, and new content is made available according to the lesson plan as it progresses from their start date.
The timing of the Lesson Plan is to release the next lesson (and sometimes more than one topic) once per week. Once per week might be too quickly for some, but once a lesson is available to you, it's always available. You could go on vacation for a couple weeks and just catch up when you come back refreshed.
Jay Foonberg has successfully practiced business law, business litigation, estate and probate litigation, legal ethics and aviation law. He will teach two courses at Solo Practice University™.
One course is entitled, ‘Client Relations 101: Teaching lawyers how to change their ways of doing things to improve client relations.’ By doing so it will result in the elimination of avoidable ethics and malpractice complaints while simultaneously improving the success of the practice. This course is based upon his famous ‘Nine Steps To A Successful Practice’.
The second course is entitled, ‘Ethics and Professionalism 101: Covering both the basics and the new developments in the traditional ethics areas including Conflicts, Trust Accounts, Client Confidences, Internet and Media Advertising, Multi Client Representation, Fee Agreements, Permissible Fee Arrangements’. This course will serve as an excellent review of law school ethics updated to be current. The course will also cover professionalism, the differences between a profession and an occupation, and the differences between a profession and a business as well as lawyer to lawyer conduct, and how these differences affect Americas’ trust in lawyers and the legal system as evidenced by the increasing number of complaints against lawyers.
Jay has served in the ABA House of Delegates; he is on the Advisory Council for the ABA Commission on Evaluation of the Rules of Professional Conduct and he was a founder of the ABA Law Practice Management Section. His book, How To Start and Build a Law Practice (5th edition), is the book that is most frequently stolen from law libraries in the United States and it has earned more than $1 million for the ABA, and has been their best seller every year since 1977. Mr. Foonberg is the author of three other important books, all available from the ABA: How to Get and Keep Good Clients (3rd edition); Finding the Right Lawyer; and The ABA Guide to Lawyer Trust Accounts. A much sought after speaker, Jay has led seminars and taught client relations, malpractice prevention, ethics and client development in every one of the 50 states and as far afield as Europe, South America and Asia in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Jay earned his JD from UCLA Law School and has received the prestigious Harrison Tweed Award, CLE’s highest honor. He lives and practices in Beverly Hills, California.
Recognition of his skills has resulted in his being perhaps the only person ever honored for lifetime achievements with awards from four American Bar Association entities including the following:
- Harrison Tweed award from the ABA-PLI Consortium on Continuing Legal Education for being the Most Outstanding CLE Educator in the United States.
- Sam’s Smith Medal for a Lifetime Achievements by the Law Practice Managment Section of the ABA.
- Don Riklis award for Lifetime Achievements by the General Practice Solo and Small Firm Division of the ABA.
- Law Student Division of The ABA for Life Time Achievements.,
- Lou Goldberg Award as the Most Outstanding Attorney-CPA in the United States by the American Association of Attorney-CPA’s.
Jay has also been decorated by the nations of Argentina and Brazil for his work in International Trade as well as having been accepted by The Knights of Malta for his work with hospitals throughout the world.
For more information about Jay, visit his website. (He will have a blog very soon!)
Mr. Foonberg has expressed optimism and enthusiasm in Solo Practice University™ as a platform, available anywhere in the world via the internet, to provide both basic and current information and ideas to help solos and small firm lawyers provide high quality legal services to their clients and to the community. He will also provide information on the resources available to solos and small firms through National and local bar organizations.
Source for Post Solo Practice University™.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the hot button topics right now and there is a lot of discussion about it. For some, just the thought of worrying about SEO causes a sick feeling to overcome them. And it shouldn't. Search engine optimization is not something you or I should be scared of. In fact, it is not impossible for us to do and because of that, we need to be looking at SEO every time we draft a blog post.
Carolyn Elefant is a lawyer, author and blogger. She will teach a course entitled ‘Starting Your Own Bar Association’ at Solo Practice University™.
Carolyn is founder and principal attorney in the Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant (LOCE). Prior to founding LOCE, Carolyn worked as an associate attorney for the law firm of Duncan and Allen, a national energy boutique located in Washington D.C. from 1990-1993 and served as an attorney advisor with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 1988 to 1990. In addition, from 1994 through 1997, Carolyn held an adjunct faculty position with the University of Maryland University College Paralegal Studies Program where she taught contract law.
Carolyn’s law practice is focused on energy work, including emerging renewable energy development and compliance/enforcement issues, appeals, and civil rights litigation. To learn more about her law practice, visit her website, Law Offices of Carolyn Elefant, the trade association that she co-founded and for which she serves as regulatory counsel Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition and her law firm blog, LOCE Offshore Wind and Wave Energy Blog. In addition, she also blogs at American Law Media’s Legal Blogwatch.
Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be
Carolyn is the creator of MyShingle.com, a popular weblog for and about solo lawyers and small law firms. MyShingle was the first of the now dozen or so blogs by other solo and small firm lawyers who generously offer their wisdom on a range of issues like starting a firm, working from home, maximizing use of technology and share their own personal experience of the process of going solo.
MyShingle lead to a book deal and in January 2008, her publisher, Decision Books released her book, Solo by Choice: How to Be the Lawyer You Always Wanted to Be
Source for Post Solo Practice University™.
BOCA RATON, FL – January 6, 2009 - Rocket Matter, a leading web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution for small to mid-sized law firms, today announces the launch of their signature product - Rocket Matter 1.0. The product is a web-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) product that addresses legal practice management and time and billing needs of law firms.
The product was originally brought to the market in beta form in February 2008. Since this time, the product has matured and developed thanks to the feedback of legal technology experts and pilot customers located all over North America.
‘Rocket Matter was designed to help attorneys have an easier way to bill for their hours,’ says Larry Port, founding partner and chief software architect. ‘Our ‘Bill As You Work™’ technology captures user’s billable time throughout the day thereby eliminating the need to total hours at the end of a billing cycle.’
The features of Rocket Matter 1.0 include:
- Contact and Matter Management – makes current and past case and client information available immediately.
- Calendaring – lets users track important dates and deadlines in the context of matters.
- Mobile Access – enables customers to view an optimized version on a smart phone.
- Batch Billing – allows users to spend their time billing, not generating bills.
- Expense Tracking – captures costs, easily and quickly.
- Reporting – helps increase efficiency and profit with reporting functions available.
- Offline Access – maintains backup copies of firms’ data locally.
- Messages – provides a powerful message taking and inter-office communication tool.
Rocket Matter 1.0 also provides increased security and assists firms with their business continuity preparedness and disaster recovery. In the event a firm is damaged or has lost power, they are able to continue their business remotely. Rocket Matter has servers in secure locations that are backed up continuously to ensure data is always protected.
Attorney Keith Bruno, a Rocket Matter pilot user since March of 2008, says, ‘After testing virtually every practice management software program known to legal man, I found Rocket Matter to be the only one that works seamlessly, allowing me to capture time from anywhere in the world with ease. Rocket Matter more than pays for itself with the time that is captured, and the bills that are produced are professional, accurate, and easy. For a small firm, it is an essential practice tool.’
Instead of purchasing and installing software and expensive hardware, Rocket Matter requires no installation or upgrades. Users navigate Rocket Matter securely using an Internet browser and by simply logging in to use the application. Known as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Rocket Matter represents an evolutionary development in the typically non-innovative world of legal practice management software.
About Rocket Matter, LLC
Rocket Matter, LLC (URL: http://www.rocketmatter.com) provides a web-based legal practice management and time and billing solution for small to mid-sized law firms. Rocket MatterTM is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application, providing increased security, business continuity, decreased technology infrastructure and maintenance, and improved return on investment for information technology expenses. Launched in February 2008, Rocket Matter’s corporate headquarters is in Boca Raton, FL.
. Brett is also on the faculty at Solo Practice University. If you are not subscribed to Brett's blog, you should be.
Do not let accounts receivable get out of hand
Regardless of market conditions, nothing affects your bottom line more than keeping your accounts receivable in check. As market conditions deteriorate however, even rock solid clients may be forced to choose who gets paid this month. If it is not you this month, and you keep providing service as usual, who is it not going to be next month? Review your engagement letter. If it does not clearly state that you will stop providing services on invoices left unpaid for thirty (30) days, revise it and make sure it does. Remember, once accounts go over 90 days, the chance of ever collecting is about the same as the Dallas Cowboys finally calling me up to start at quarterback.
Fire Bad Clients
Solo practitioners, especially new solo practitioners, have a tendency to want to take every client who walks in the door. Over time, solo practitioners earn some savvy as to which clients are good and which will be nothing but headaches. Regardless of how good an attorney might be at sizing up new clients, bad eggs inevitably slip through. Even though these bad clients may make up only 10% of your clientele, they tend to create 90% of your headaches. As difficult as it may be to fire any client, getting rid of this bottom 10% will open up more time to cater to other the 90% of your clients, and significantly increase your satisfaction with your practice.
Develop a personal relationship with your existing clients
Large law firms may tens of thousands of dollars every year attracting large clients, only to pull the old bait and switch once they are in the door. With larger firms laying off lawyers right and left, clients tired of being shuffled around like office furniture are reviewing their options. These clients are looking for the personal service they received when they first signed on, an attorney who treats them as an individual, rather than as a commodity. As a solo practitioner, you are uniquely positioned to maintain that personal relationship with every client. Use this to your advantage; never take any client for granted. You can never go wrong treating your existing clients like you treat potential clients.
Invest in your personal brand
As a solo practitioner, your name is your brand. Old-school clients located your brand using the yellow pages, new-school clients locate your brand online. Search Google for your state and your expertise. If you are a patent attorney in Iowa and do not show up on the first page of Google search results for "Iowa Patent Attorney," you might as well be invisible. Using blogs, social networking and website search engine optimization (SEO) does not cost a lot of money, but it does take some time. Leverage these tools to increase your transparency and your findability. While referrals are still the best type of clients, clients who find you over the web are far preferable to those who found you letting their fingers do the walking.
Develop a full-service virtual law firm
Many solo practitioners tout their practice as a full-service firm. If this is you, you risk being a Jack (or Jill) of all trades and master of none. Specialize, specialize, specialize. Specialization may initially mean fewer clients, but sticking to a specialty eventually translates into a higher hourly rate and happier clients. What about the work outside your specialty? Unlike large law firms which require attorneys to refer clients to the in-house “specialist,” you have the luxury of referring clients to a true specialist. Adroit use of social networks , podcasts, blogs and other online tools can help you develop a list of the best attorneys in each specialty. Unlike large law firms, your virtual firm has the benefit of including every specialty your client could ever need. Another benefit is that you can add and subtract “partners” based upon their performance and client satisfaction, rather than upon the degrees of consanguinity they may have with the managing partner.
I am so very pleased to announce that I have joined the faculty at Solo Practice University™ (SPU). SPU is a web-based legal educational and networking community for lawyers and law students created by Susan Cartier LIebel, publisher of one of the best legal blogs on the web, Build a Solo Practice, LLC.
SPU is an online source for law students and legal professionals who want one place to go for information and resources on the practical aspects of running their own law practice. This is exactly what law schools should be doing and aren't.
When I was asked to join the faculty at SPU, I considered it for a total of 2 seconds before I said, "yes". I told Susan, "this is something which has been missing from the legal profession from the beginning of time." Where else can you go for a complete source of information and resources then the web. And Susan saw this. She has taken the charge by bringing to those who are starving for such information and resources in one location by founding SPU.
I will be teaching, talking and interacting with the students of SPU about blogging. Specifically, how to effectively use blogging to market and promote their law practices. With the mini-communities SPU will be providing, this is a unique opportunity for students and other legal professionals to enter into a conversation and learn from each other about how to use a blog in their own marketing programs.
My goal as a faculty member of SPU is to encourage those who enroll in the university to engage in that conversation about blogging. By taking advantage of the interaction which I hope takes place between the faculty and the students, each will walk away from this experience with tools and ideas and those all important connections they will need to have a successful marketing program for their own law practices.
I also want those who are enrolled in SPU to always feel like they can contact me anytime to ask questions or discuss their concerns about blogging. It will be these conversation which will make this a great experience for all. I look forwarded to meeting all of those who are enrolled in or will soon be enrolled in SPU. Let the interaction and learning begin!
I received that question not too long ago from one of our readers. I am not going to use his name, but I will tell you he is an attorney. A professional service provider as I also like to call attorneys. However, what I tell him really applies to anyone working from a home based office. And it will work to start getting you clients and customers now.
Here is what I wrote him in an email in response to his questions:
Please leave your comments on other suggestions on how you can get clients or customers if you work out of a home office. The more we can share the better off all of us will be in these uncertain times. Instead of sitting back worrying about the economy, lets get out there and make our own. Lets keep the conversation going!!!!Sorry for the delay in getting back to you with your question. You really answered this question yourself when you said blog. I am serious, if you want to position yourself as the place to go for legal help, you need to position yourself as the place to go for information first.
And since you are, as you call it, basically a brand new attorney starting out, a blog is one of the best and lowest cost marketing tools you can use. But don't stop there. Incorporate a well thought out and designed email newsletter to your blog too. Give your readers a way to subscribe to the newsletter. And if that is not enough, come up with something you can give them for FREE. A short ezine series on something you are going to be practicing about. Take for example divorce. An ezine on how to prepare and meet with your attorney would be a good one. Anything you can do to show you are the place to go for information is what you want to do.
(A little self-promotion coming up).If you are not reading my blog, Blog For Profit, go read it and subscribe. And while you are there subscribe to my Newsletter. I talk a lot about blogging for businesses and professional service firms. Not about monetizing a blog with ads. Which there are too many of those.
I hope this helps. Oh, and don't forget some of the other traditional marketing tools. Network, both on and offline. Join a civic group and get involved in your community. If you are going to work at home, where is home? Do you live in a subdivision with a neighborhood center. If you do, offer to give free seminars on something people are wanting to know about. Estate planning is a good one. Bring in other professionals to do them with you. Financial planners for example. They may need the PR with today's market ups and downs.
Drop me an email at grant@g2webmedia.com if you have questions about blogging or working from home. I would be happy to visit more by phone too.
"Should you be the one to write your blog post?: "
A week or so ago, there was a lot of discussion on other blogs about who should be writing for your business blog. They included:
The options presented originally were four; the business owner, employee(s) of the business, freelancers, or canned blog posts. I have my own opinion on this, but before I give you that, I wanted to take a look at what has been suggested from others.
To read the rest of this post, please visit our blog, Blog For Profit.
Stephanie Kimbro, co-founder of Virtual Law Office Technology, LLC and client of G2Webmedia published this exciting announcement this morning. Congrats to Stephanie and to Solo Practice University for landing another quality faculty member.
VLOTech is pleased to announce that co-founder, Stephanie Kimbro, has joined the faculty at Solo Practice University™, a web-based, legal education community created by Susan Cartier Liebel of Build of Solo Practice, LLC. Solo Practice University™ (SPU) is opening its doors to law students and legal professionals who want to learn more about the practical aspects of running a law practice, an education they may not have received in law school.
Kimbro’s goal as a faculty member will be to provide SPU students with the resources to open a virtual law practice and to operate that practice with strong ethical and professional standards that will provide quality online legal services to the public.
Kimbro will teach a course on virtual law practice that covers many different aspects of elawyering, including opening and operating a virtual law office (VLO), marketing techniques for an online practice, and handling technology and ethics issues that may arise from practicing law over the Internet.
She practices North Carolina law online with her own virtual law office powered by VLOTech and will share her virtual law practice experience with students. A variety of technologies, including web conferencing, videos, podcasts, blog posts and other media, will be used to teach the course and create a productive dialogue with students.
Source for Post Virtual Law Office Technology, LLC.
Been visiting a lot lately with solos and small firms about blogging in connection with our new business, G2Webmedia. And what I have discovered, there is a huge amount of interest out there right now for blogging.
It appears to me more and more lawyers are beginning to see the benefits of blogging. Especially for the solo and small firm. More and more are seeing blogging as a way to put the solo and small firm on the same "footing" as the larger firms in establishing a web presence.
Blogging for what it cost to get started is one of the best marketing investments you can make. Even if you have firm professionally design your blog, you will spend only a fraction of what a large yellow page ad will cost you.
In an effort to answering as many questions as I can and to also keep the conversations going on blogging, submit your questions here. You can either leave a comment to this post or drop me an email at grant@g2webmedia.com. We will hopefully get enough we can do a continued series here on Home Office Lawyer where we discuss blogging.
And no question is a stupid question. There is no such thing.
Since I started to use twitter a few months ago, I have actually seen my blog traffic increase over that time. One way you can use twitter is to promote your own blog. And luckily, there is an application which helps you do just that.
I use twitterfeed to feed my blog post directly to twitter. And you can do this with each blog you post to. You set it up once and after that you don't have to do anything to have your post fed to your twitter followers.
If your blog is on WordPress, you can use a plugin called Twitter Updater. This one does the same thing as twitterfeed, but it is tied only to WordPress blogs.
What you should not do however, is only update your twitter feed with your RSS feed. Don't be a twitter spammer or what those of us on twitter like to call, a twammer. This should be only a small part of what you are doing on twitter.
This just in from Rocket Matter. Looks like another great feature has been added to an already great legal SaaS. Check it out.
Rocket Matter is pleased to announce our newest time-saving feature: Messages.
Pink message pads are history! Now, you can take down and review phone messages from any computer with Internet access. Watch this video to see the feature in action.
A breeze to use, Messages can revolutionize the way your firm handles its inter-office communication. This brand-new, extra functionality is available at no additional charge to our Pilot users! Legal SaaS just got a lot more powerful.
Begin by clicking on the telephone icon at the top of the page. This brings up the new message dialog. All of your users, contacts and clients, and matters are at your fingertips, so taking a message has never been easier.
Let’s say I take a message for an attorney, Keith. When Keith logs in, he sees that he has 1 new message. He clicks on the link next to the phone that says ‘1 New Message’, and views his message list. From there, he can drill into a message. He can read it. He can forward the message to another person in the firm.
Keith can even associate billable time with any follow-up work related to the message. This is an extension of our Bill As You Work(TM) technology, and will get funneled right into billing, to appear on an invoice, ready to go out to the client.
Now, gain back even more billable time by giving your mouse a rest. Move through your forms without leaving the keys. Fly through the Add Matter wizard - hit enter instead of clicking the OK button to submit your forms.
This feature has been high on the list of many firms - and we’re happy to deliver. Keyboard submit is enabled on all pages, so you can get your information into Rocket Matter more efficiently!
Source for Post Rocket Matter.
How to use twitter as a lawyer - who should I follow - Part 2 is the next in the series we are doing over at Blog for Profit.
Take a look and leave any comments or questions you might have about using this great marketing, networking tool as a lawyer. If there are specific questions you would like to see me cover in this series, please let me know. I want those who read this blog to have the information necessary so they can explore using twitter themselves.
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